Chapter Twenty-Four: Shocked
It didn't take us long to find the storage facility. In the minutes following Wally's hasty S.O.S. the rumbling and distant crashes grew more and more frequent to the point where I was nervous about the old structures ability of holding the roof over our heads.
It was easy to pick out the correct storage department. The double doors of Warehouse F12 hung in odd angles on their hinges. The one that was slightly open revealed that the inward facing façade was blackened from exposure to what looked like blasts of… intense heat. The small glass windows of each door flashed like beacons as we moved closer. I noticed that Nightwing barely broke his stride before forcing his way in to whatever dangers were inside. Mutely and after yet another deep inhale I followed.
Instantly I had to shield my eyes with my forearm. A brilliant white light surged around us. Cackling and buzzing erupted in my ears drowning out whatever curse Nightwing muttered under his breath. When my eyes adjusted I seriously considered turning around and leaving the way I came in.
The facility had definitely seen better days. An assortment of coloured cables were jumping around, the surging electricity within them had nowhere to go, leaving them to coil and spring in every direction. Every floor tile and wall panel was chipped, broken or blackened like the doors to the room. Any furniture or machinery had been reduced to rubble.
Every so often another burst of light would occur, causing me to wince and shut my eyes once more. With better adjustment though I could see the flashes were echoes of blue lightning striking in every which direction but all emitting from one, small and shadowed figure.
"Is that –" I started but was cut off by K.F.'s appearance in front of us.
"Took you long enough," he stated. There was black dust smeared on his right cheek and he looked exhausted.
"What's going on?" Nightwing's voice was all business.
"Electricity manipulator. Conner let him – well, broke him – out of his cryotank and before we knew what's happening he sent us all hurtling backwards into the far wall. We haven't gotten close enough to him since."
"Even you?" It was a good question. Surely the fasted guy on the planet could out run a bit of lightning.
"I can break the sound barrier, not the light," his answer was wry, almost like he'd said these words many times before. "But yes I tried. I can get close enough to touch him but –" Wally raised his right hand, showing the blacked material of his glove and a smattering of holes.
"Maybe Superboy can knock him out?" I suggested, the boy of steel would hardly be fazed.
"Superboy has a… thing about electricity," Nightwing answered without turning to me. His blue grey eyes were scanning the room, I could almost see the wheels turning in his head as searched for a strategy. "On a mission he was captured and tested by Cadmus. An intense strike of lightning and he'll drop like a fly."
"Plus," K.F. added. "He can't get close enough. I can't carry him."
Just then the air seemed to still around us, before a surge of energy erupted, I only just heard Nightwing yell and hurl himself in my direction. The flash seemed brighter than before, almost a glistening wash of white and blue before blocked by a black suit. His body collided with my right side, the left hitting the sooty ground painfully. I groaned causing him to sit up on his knees and elbows as he scanned my body frantically.
"I wasn't hit…" I grunted, trying to ignore the flutter in my chest at his panic.
"Oh…" There was an awkward moment, I found myself wondering how that was even possible in our current situation. I could feel every line of his body on mine and I wish I could have said that didn't affect me. I cleared my throat.
"Though there is a piece of debris sticking in my back…" the hint trailed off. He stared at me a moment longer before the words struck home.
"Oh! Right…" He pulled himself up, gripping my wrist fluidly so that I stood with him. There would have been another awkward silence had his saving my life not given me an idea. If Nightwing could take my full weight in his stride…
"K.F.!" I called and he appeared once more his eyes took us in quickly for gaping wounds before the green orbs rested on me. "Could you carry me?"
He frowned at me for a moment, trying to assess the reasoning behind my question. His best friend got there first.
"Absolutely not." The words were dark. Nightwing was using his scary voice.
"But if I could get there I could –"
"You saw K.F.'s glove. Who says you won't be incinerated on contact?"
"I'm an absorber, I'll absorb the energy through the touch, I've done it before."
"It's too dangerous!"
"Do you have any better ideas?"
His eyes bored into mine, I wasn't sure what he saw but I could see the anger but also the fear. Not for himself but for me.
"The blasts are getting more frequent," Cassie's voice called from my right but I refused to break eye contact with our leader. "He's getting worse, if we don't do something soon he'll cause the whole facility to fall on our heads."
There was another pause. It wasn't awkward, it was determined.
"It's either do this or leave him here," K.F. said, placing a hand on Nightwing's shoulder.
His friend's touch seemed to jerk him awake. With a sigh he shrugged it off.
"Fine. But if it's too much you get out of there, no questions. Got it?"
I nodded vigorously, unsure whether to be thrilled that I'd convinced him or petrified. Without another word, encase he changed his mind, I strode up to Wally, wrapping my arms around his neck before he scooped me up beneath my knees in a marriage style.
"Ready?" He asked. I could feel his rapidly beating heart beneath my shoulder. Not trusting my voice I nodded. Before I could so much as think about bracing myself we were off, the stony glance of grey-blue eyes disappearing in a black and grey blur.
I half imagined that getting close to the source of the destruction would be a sort of 'eye-of-the-storm' situation. I was very wrong.
The air stank of burnt rubber and was filled with the dry tension of static, I could feel the hairs sanding up on my neck and head with it, the tips of my fingers buzzed with the friction. With a deep breath I forced my gaze upwards to my target and gasped as his face registered in my mind.
He was only a boy, no older than Sadira. Sweat stuck his sandy hair to his face and his too-thin body was shuddering in terrible angles. He screamed at the same time I ducked. Another streak of lightning burst from the kid's narrow chest. The power must be too strong for his small frame to handle. I crawled over to him. My gut clenched staring at the agony on his pale face.
"Help me…" he gasped, wide and frantic eyes taking me in as I stood before him.
"I will…" I yelled back so he could hear me. "I'll make it go away…."
Just then a tremor rocked through his body. More lightning was about to come. But I was too close. There was no way I'd be able to duck from the blasts this time. It was now… or I was fried.
With speed I didn't think I could manage, I took his face in my hands and breathed in.
I welcomed the pulse that ran through us. I took his power, felt it rush through me. It was stronger than anything I'd felt before. More… raw. Like Superboy's his memories were almost blank, the barest flashes of doctors and needles. I wondered vaguely if this is what my memories would look like. Desperate nothingness. Then just like that, the rush left and exhaustion flooded through me like a wave. I slumped forward only to have to catch the body in front of me. The relief and exhaustion causing him to pass out.
I barely heard the others approach, there was a ringing in my ears and a sudden nauseous feeling growing in my abdomen. When Cassie began extracting the boy from my grip I noticed my hands were trembling.
"… alright? Fraya? Can you hear me?" I finally tuned in to what she was saying.
"What?" The thought of standing up wasn't a good one. Light-headedness was creeping into my other symptoms.
"You're pale." Nightwing's voice echoed in my head before his face appeared in my line of vision. "Were you hit?"
"N – No." I answered shaking my head once, twice and then a third time. "I'm fine I'm just… dizzy. That was a lot of power I took. I just need to sleep."
I stood up then and was grateful when Superboy gripped my arm as I was pretty sure I was about to fall on my face. Something was definitely wrong. I'd never felt like this after using my powers.
"You sure you're alright?" Conner asked, his mouth close to my ear so the others – Nightwing – wouldn't hear.
"I'm fine… I just haven't slept in a while with everything…" I swallowed again, words were becoming difficult as the fog in my mind thickened.
"I understand." Thankfully he kept his hand on me as we made our way forward, following Duela's tracker so that we could avoid the wetter way back to the ship. "Thank-you, by the way."
"For what?" Why were my eyes closing? I stumbled and I felt his arm wrap around my waist to steady me.
"Saving the kid. I… I lost it back there. You didn't let him suffer from my mistake."
"Don't be stupid," I didn't mean for my voice to sound harsh. "I would have done the same thing in your place. Us cryo-babies gotta stick… together."
His chuckle was the last thing I heard before blackness pulled me under.
When I woke, I realised two things. One: I hadn't been out longer than half an hour, the pain behind the back of my eyelids told me as much. I vowed when this was over I was not going to leave the confines of my bed for at least a week.
Two: the sick feeling in my gut had gotten worse, so much worse in fact that it had woken me from a near coma.
"Didn't think we'd be seeing you for a while yet," I just about heard Wally's voice from somewhere to my left. Adjusting my vision I saw I'd been belted into one of the reclining seats in the back of the jet. I sought out Conner in what felt like the sea of faces and gave him a grateful nod.
"How ya feeling?" Wally asked.
Glancing down at my hands I realised the tremors in them had intensified. Causing me to grit my teeth, tightening them into fists and shoving them into the pockets of my hoody.
"Fine," I choked out. When I met his doubtful gaze I added. "Just tired."
"When was the last time you slept?" Nightwing's voice called from the cock-pit.
I tried to concentrate and remember but a cramp in my abdomen suddenly took my breath away. I gasped quietly and pulled my knees up to my chest as it faded.
"Well?" He prodded.
"Last night," the words were said through my teeth.
"I meant at least six hours."
"I don't…" another cramp… this time double in its intensity, I pressed my head against my knees and rocked a little. How far were we from H.Q.?
"What about food? Do you remember the last time you've eaten? You have to look after…"
"Nightwing…" The pounding in my head was getting stronger, the cramps seemed to be moving up towards my chest. I barely noticed the slight shudder in the jet's flight pattern.
"What was that?" I heard Duela ask Nightwing.
"Just a bit of turbulence…" he added lightly.
"Whoa, did I just hear right?" Wally spoke up. "You can't remember the last time you ate? Jeez I couldn't even imagine…"
"That's because you eat twenty times a day," Cassie's dry tone grated against my senses. All of their voices did in fact. I tried to inhale deeply, but the pain in my chest wouldn't allow it.
"Guys…" my voice couldn't be heard over their light-hearted bickering. There was another shudder throughout the jet. My palms began to perspire, and then sting. Unclenching them I brought them out of my pockets to see the source of the pain.
"I need the nutrition, high metabolism, hello? And you can't talk, super-strength needs the fuel too! I've seen you eat more than Superboy!"
"Guys…" My mouth had gone dry. The lights inside the jet flashed a little this time with the shudder not that team beta noticed.
"I do not!"
"You do, actually," Superboy chuckled, causing her to blush scarlet. "You inhale protein."
"Excuse me! I'll have you know –"
"Quiet!" Nightwing's tone silenced them all. I couldn't even be grateful as I felt a tremor seep from my hands, causing my whole upper body to shake. "Something's wrong."
"You said it was just turbulence." Duela sounded almost bored.
"I checked the readings. There's been a surge in power from inside the plane."
"Yeah well I just checked on the kid, he's still out cold." K.F. interjected.
"Nightwing."
My voice wasn't loud, in fact it was barely above a whisper but my tone made him turn. His gaze landing on me for merely a second before launching himself out of his seat. He knelt in front on me, his eyes scanning my face until I held my hands out to him, shaking so badly that he had to grip them to see them properly.
Four bloody semi-circles bit into each palm from where my fingernails had broken skin. And from the scarlet liquid which I mistook as sweat you could see an undercurrent of tiny blue sparks.
I watched as his cheeks paled and he swallowed audibly.
"What's wrong?" Wally asked, taking a step closer to peer over his shoulder.
Then a number of things happened at once.
Pain, ten times worse than before sliced through my body causing me to pull my hands out of Nightwing's grip and clutch my abdomen. My scream shattered any confusion left in the jet. An awful yet familiar light flashed around us as Wally and Nightwing were thrown backwards from me, hitting the seats at awkward angles with a series of thumps. My eyes widened in horror just as things went from bad to worse.
Because it was then that the jet went into free-fall.