Rich stayed where he was, painfully propped against a tree trunk, for several minutes. There was no sound, not so much as a leaf crunching. All he could hear was his own labored breathing.
That grenade – Rich got the strange feeling that somehow it had been flung from a great distance.
There was heavy brush all around him, the trees and thorn vines were thick. It meant that whatever snipers were out there couldn't see him (he hoped). But it also meant that all Rich could see were the remains of the knight that had saved his life, and the slow ponderous smoke coming slowly off of him. Rich felt a pang of sharp regret, underneath his bubbling fear.
These men had come with them, trying to give their new roommate his freedom, and they had died because of it.
Adrian. He was still in there, right now. They had to get him out; there was nothing else for it. These people just proved that they are seriously messed up. Kill two men just for showing up near them.
God only knows what they would do to Adrian. Especially with that… thing, hanging out in his body.
There was a rustle behind Rich. He turned quickly to look over his shoulder and behind the tree he was leaning on. He regretted it. His neck cricked and he groaned in pain. It felt like he pulled something.
Wincing a little, he peered into the forest behind him. What had that been?
A fearful thought struck him, shivering him to the bones.
Had they sent someone around behind them, to take them out while they were pinned down?
It was then that he heard the whisper.
"Hey! Rich!"
A burly figure moved partially out of the underbrush, kneeling down.
It was Hal. Rich sighed in relief.
Hal. Good. Maybe now they could do something. They needed to find the others but where-
"Hal! Are you ok? Where are the others?
Hal looked like he was going to be sick. "Rich, the two guys that came with us, I think they, uh-" Rich waved him off. "Yeah. They're both dead. The giant was shot through the head by a sniper, and the knight-"
Rich gestured behind him, where the twisted metal suit lay. Hal nodded sadly. "Yeah, we were all flung away by him right before…"
"Right before he was destroyed by those men that kidnapped Adrian."
Hal's expression hardened. He stood up from cover and pounded a fist into a palm.
"I'm going to kill every last one of those bastards, and then drag their rotting corpses to-"
It was then that a tree next to where Hal was standing erupted in shattered bark. Rich grabbed Hal and pulled the bigger man down into cover.
"Hal- Listen, where's Collin?"
Hal looked steady and calm, but Rich got the feeling that underneath it all he was now really shaken.
"He uh, he's back deeper in the forest, around to the left. We found a, uh- air duct exhaust port that empties out in the forest. It has like a steel gate on it though. We would need to blow it off, but we're afraid that as soon as we do, we'll attract attention."
Rich raised an eyebrow. Since when was Hal worried about attracting attention?
Hal crept slowly deeper into the forest, and Rich followed. That was where he met him with the rest of his friends. And that is where they constructed their cunning plan.
Rich rocketed along in the open, just in front of the tree-line. He pushed and prodded mentally at his kinetic force, forcing it to stay at least triple of what it would be normally from just his legs propelling him forward. It had certainly taken a little getting used to- this business of having each step push him three times farther and faster than normal, but Rich was mostly used to it by now.
But one thing was for certain, Rich thought to himself, as he zigzagged around a large oak tree, and back out into the top of the hill-
This plan was a good deal less cunning then he thought. At this speed everything seemed to be moving slower- the leaves falling as he brushed by low hanging branches, the little clods of grass he kicked up as he sped by- everything.
Well, except the bullets. They still moved just as fast, causing trees and ground alike to explode in a shower of bark or dirt.
That was their cunning plan- run like crazy along the tree-line and attract attention from the snipers. The bullets were certainly still way faster than Rich could ever be, but the snipers themselves weren't. They couldn't get a bead on Rich, as he zoomed across hilly grass and leaf-covered forest alike. Sometimes he'd even jump and bounce off a tree in his escapade, just to mix things up and keep the snipers thinking. So far they hadn't even gotten really close to him-
The ground several yards behind him exploded in a display of green and brown as grass and dirt were blown from their resting places. He grinned despite himself. He must look like a long blurred streak in the sniper's scope.
Rich took a look at the big square building below him in the clearing as he ran around. He was coming around on the "back" now- defined as such only because it was on the direct opposite side as the wall with the door, which supposedly was the "front".
Suddenly he saw a flash of light in the distance. That must be Collin, using squidy to destroy that grating. Rich suddenly saw movement coming from in front of him, moving in the opposite direction towards him.
Something was... jumping up from the ground high into the sky and…throwing rocks?
If Rich wasn't busy running, he would've slapped a hand to his forehead. Hal had just jumped into the air and thrown a rock at a sniper. It was lucky it was nearly impossible to hit him when he was bouncing around in the air like that.
A few minutes later, Rich was meeting up with Hal, both of them unscathed and grinning, back in the forest near where they had started.
"Hal, I must tell you, that was fairly dangerous what you just-"
Hal grinned and gave Rich a hearty slap on the back, cutting him off.
"Ha! It was great and you know it! Come on, did you see that metal-head's face when I jumped up on level with him and zipped a rock right into his stupid nose? Hah hah! Anyway, come on, we gotta catch up with Collin."
Rich decided it wasn't worth pressing the issue, and followed Hal down further into the woods.
When they got down to the place Hal had described, Rich saw a small tentacle of crackling fire wave at him. He tried very hard not to roll his eyes, as the thing abruptly faded out of existence. He followed the grinning Collin over the destroyed grate and down into a shaft that dropped a few feet, then turned and led a ways in the distance, before appearing to drop off again.
Rich dropped down the shaft behind Collin, and then followed him a ways ahead down the first shaft. After a moment he heard Hal's heavy frame land behind him with a low metallic sound.
Huddled there, in the dark of an air vent, in the middle of nowhere, seemed to have a sobering effect on all of them. The images of the knight, screaming at them, calling them fools, pushing them back into the forest, saving their lives, flashed through Rich's mind. And then the small green object, the explosion, the charred metal, the image of the masked giant, with that hole in his head, the blood seeping and melding red with green on the grass, slipping down the hill as it ran out of-
Rich shook his head to kill the image. He shuddered. Adrian. They were here for him. If these guys could do such things without provocation, what would they do to Adrian?
"Come one guys, w e have to get out of this space. We could easily be taken out with a... grenade, or- something else."
Hal and Collin murmured their assent to keep moving forward anyway.
Rich crept forward on all fours, feeling the cold, hollow-feeling metal rattle beneath him. This area must be suspended in some fashion. He heard a soft metal sound in front of him. He crawled to the end of the passage he was in and looked down. He saw Collin's loose blonde hair moving out of view, as he crawled down the next passage. Rich followed suit and Hal after him.
After a few minutes of much of the same, Rich suddenly froze. And the worst part was that he didn't know why. He had chills. It was as if his body suddenly knew something that his mind hadn't caught up with yet.
"Wait" said Hal's gruff voice behind him. Since Rich had already stopped, by the time Collin stopped, he was already a ways down the air duct shaft. Warm air was blowing past them all now, making it hard going forward and even harder to stay in one place comfortably. But Rich waited nonetheless. Not only that, but his elbows and knees were beginning to ache from-
"MOVE!" shouted Hal, his form crashing into Rich's legs. Rich immediately scrambled forward, and saw Collin doing the same.
"What?" shouted Rich, as he scrambled down the air duct. This passage was a lot longer than the other ones. They hadn't dropped off for a while yet.
"There's someone behind us. I heard sounds coming from back there. There is DEFINTELY someone following us. It has to be one of the snipers. They followed us into the duct. We have to MOVE."
Rich scrambled forward as fast as he could manage, his muscles beginning to protest with the awkward strain he was putting on them for crawling like this.
Collin kicked out in front of him, and then dropped out of view. Rich took only the merest of glances down to confirm Collin had gotten out of the way, before he dropped down lightly onto his feet, his body crouching to the ground, absorbing the shock of landing.
He looked around. The air duct grating was a crumpled mess Collin was a few feet in front of Rich now, on his feet. They appeared to be in a small, cramped room- at one end was a smooth beige colored door, with no discernible handle, and behind him…
Was a toilet. They were in a bathroom. Wonderful.
Rich heard sounds coming from over head as Hal rumbled through the air duct. Rich called up to him.
"Hal, hold on! Can you stay up there for a bit? We need you to keep watch on whatever might be following us. Meanwhile we'll see if we can figure out where we are, and where we should go next."
Hal's head appeared briefly above Rich. "Yeah sure. I'll kick its ass." Hal said, in an off-hand kind of way. His next comment sounded more nervous though.
"Could you, um hurry up though? I think the thing is getting closer."
Rich nodded, and Hal's head slipped out of view. What was that thing? Was it a sniper? Something else? Either way…
"Hey Rich, look over here!" came Collin's voice from the far end of the bathroom.
Rich jogged out of the bathroom stall and into the main area of the bathroom. Collin was by the door, which he had cracked open. Rich came up behind him and said softly-
"What did you discover?"
Collin said "Look at the sign painted on the hallway wall across from the door."
Rich nodded and Collin moved out of the way, holding the door for Rich. Rich kept the door open as he slid out to peer down the hall. He looked both ways, empty. He looked at what Collin had pointed out. It was a sign with two arrows. One said-"
EXTRA-DIMENSIONAL RESEARCH
With an arrow the pointed down the hall to the right. The other read-
BIO-ENGINEERING DEVELOPMENT
With an arrow pointing to the left. Rich frowned, and stepped back into the bathroom with Collin.
"So, what do you think Richman? I vote we go for the Bio Engineer thingy- Adrian is mostly human after all." Collin laughed to himself, making Rich think that he meant it as a joke. Rich raised an eyebrow, and was about to speak- when he had a thought.
It was one of those rare, inspired thoughts. Rich raised a hand to quiet Collin, as he let the thought take its course.
Bio-engineering, that did make sense sort of but what about the other one? Extra-dimensional research… wasn't the chameleon that enveloped Adrian a spirit? Isn't that what Dan and Jeremy had said about it?
But wait… this place was a Technocratic Lab. Weren't the technocrats big on understanding absolutely everything in the world? Then if they encountered something like the chameleon in Corey…
That's it. Of course. They would want to study it, to understand it, force it to fit into their view of the world. And they might call it…
An extra-dimensional creature. Of course. Now all they had to do was-
A loud bellow interrupted Rich's thoughts. He and Collin turned around to look back at the end of the bathroom.
Hal was there, running out of a bathroom stall.
"We have to get out right NOW!"
Rich looked at Collin.
"Hal, man what's going on?" asked Collin.
"You aren't going to believe this. I saw a man in the air duct, with freaking WHEELS under his legs. He was speeding around like a metal cyber race car. And, he is probably about ready to come out of that air duct like right now, so could we please GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE?"
And without further debate, Hal grabbed both Collin and Rich, each under an arm, and ran out of the bathroom door.
Hal dropped Rich and Hal, and Rich motioned to the right, and Hal and Collin followed.
That was when the bathroom door behind them exploded in a ball of flame and light.
"SHIT" yelled Hal, and Rich could hardly argue. They flew down the hallway, not seeing anyone. After about five minutes of racing down halls and following the Extra-Dimensional Research, they all stopped to catch their breath. Rich felt like his lungs were about to explode.
"You think we lost them, squidy?" Collin whispered, into his pocket. Rich decided to pretend that was directed at him.
"Yeah, it looks like we lost them for now."
Hal and Collin nodded assent, and all three of them entered under a sign that said "Extra Dimensional Research". Apparently they had made it. Rich walked up to the first lab door on the left, and looked in the door window.
His mouth dropped.
He saw a bunch of complicated looking electrical equipment, lab tables-
And Adrian, standing on a lab table, half naked, his eyes the ghostly white of the chameleon spirit, and his tongue flying out several feet to grab a white-coated lab technician.