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MagGyded growling missile - maybe 20 yards and closinGap like barreling sleigh with all the bells & whistles. I popped up, steadying my bearings with elongating breaths. I twisteDebris tighter against my palm: "Make room for one mistreated passenger," I murmured.

A haunted gaze was openly locked into Malibu's face as they bolTowards my position. Heart was plummetinGrunge -- but resolve bore a hole through my stomach as doubts about clearing this hurdle without a retry crept in. The vocation looked to require some reverSaddle circus acrobatics. I'd have to cling onto the hurdle clipping at maybe 40 mph, and refuse any Shock~Waves from deflecting me off the roughly 5 square feet of flashing Motor. Nothing short of immaculate will drive you home. Time for agonizing at the massive odds of agony fractured away: ~ I noticed Gut release the bag down beneath the dashboard, legs rock and arms open wide, offering to cushion my body as it came. Not comforTrusty, jusTruSTink, since he was riding legally blind.

My leg muscles bunched with protests of desperate rumples, and as the gap dissipated, I briskly translated the lower squeeze into an aim for his End-cruisiasm. Then only the tense air against my forehead & between my lungs seemed to exist; I realized this was about to feel as resistanTricky as trying to brace a leaping wolf in a headlock. My fisted right knuckles clutching destroyed eye-wear, extended for Gutterson chest; I'd need him to help latch hold firmly.

My calculated leap had charged from a belCHain of butterflies, majoReason I assume why my forearm overshot the target into the crook of his far shoulder. When my upper body impacted the meat of his bones, my right shin bounced in a stinging strike against some levers and buttons on the dashboard. Searing flares showered through my existence. The blow flipped my trajectory into a roll, & sent my vision into a frenetic whirl...! so I curled like an armydillo, hoping to anchor my center of gravity and remain an easier grasp for my compatriot.

I felt jeans rake at my tricep. The side of my netted hair glanced his belly and ribs. The pseudo-generated winds besieged my Net even before raucous impact, order of mutiny flinging it aside, treating my tongue to an ever-so-delicious gob of scalp-fur while stealing fifty percent of my sight. We were briefly three quarters blind as a duo.

"Pyram!" I heard boisterously as Gut tried to cradle my waist against him but proved too slippery to corral at once. I savored the smearing of his arms upon me, as I thought it to be the last loving human touch I might ever experience. My thighs jerked like a ragdoll across cold-edged exterior, slashing concern that I was going to be eternally tossed away. With my trailing, available hand, I grabbed non-dominantly at my pal's thick Maroon shirt. Momentarily I clamped a wrinkle into the fabric -- but it zipped away impossibly slick, and rendered me unable to resist the drag of mass pitted against me.

I slipped from warmth & rattled across bumpy surface of the Craft. Frigid despair devoured my entire spirit; I knew that before I could blink again I'd be bucked & left in the dust to succumb to lonely grimaces. I started to howl out in mournful Farewell. My mouth opened as I soared outside the scope of Time itself.

But right as the pressure of sentiment could fully rake across my vocal chords, a stiff stretching sensation swung into my leg, my backward motion snapping to a halt. Agony switched matters altogether as my ankle buckled, calf tightened, and the gash in my hamstring electrified through my chakras: "WaOAHOh'BIwAaAjJaaiAA!!" I squealed like a stuck pig, at once D-LEER-ee-YelPressed in misery, horribly relieved to realize my shoe caught in the labyrinth of wires.

"Almighty God!..." Gutterson marveled as he saw what transpired. "Hang tight I'm coming!" he roared from the cockpit as I dangled from Mag-netty's rear. All I could do was hang tight, & really didn't know how he could help from up there, I just hoped I didn't come loose from this miraculous position.

My mind split off far into the stratosphere against the strain in my leg, as if a dentist were extracting my tooth, & I just wanted to drift into a portal where all jeopardy would cease. My lashes flooded with tears. Consciousness began to fall limp of willpower, but "HERE; Grab this!" Pin-balled through my awareness.

I peeled open my eyelids to see the long branch of a Rifle dipping before me. I grappled the metal with one palm, taking time to jam the remnants of the spectacles between my teeth to free my other hand as well as squeeze the pain away. But as my second hand swung to join hold, I felt a fresh tension defy my wrist & jerk into my neck.

It stretched and crushed instantly sore in a ring shape, delivered so callous that I became certain it could exact no more pressure. Which came true with a tiny pop, ()felt more than heard)) … --and a thin band so slight it was almost ticklish slithered across my skin. I figured out what it was instantly.

His keepsake -- confided to me. The superfluous motion had snagged the chain of Siggy's necklace. *Why me* - I saw it shimmering, a golden tendril fluttering out away from me. Not only had the 'Lace been damaged as it was displaced from its roost about my neck, it seemed the symbolic trinket might be lost forever. Unless…

I observed it dipping down in an arc to my other side, lending me a decent chance at repossessing it. But since i hung at a compromised angle, the time before it would eclipse my reach was short withering.

Like a monkey leaning from tree's edge, I risked changing hands on the shotgun nozzle (which I somehow performed masterfully) to chase it across my body.

It sparkled, a serpentine tongue gloating in its freedom. My gloved phalanges sliced under its gnarled dismount. It wriggled. I pulled the trigger. It glanced off like an oily fish. Shit! The locket sank... and then -- an Explosion -- jostled! my eyes in their sockets. Purple pulses. Distorted crunches swam through my ears, savage as a bloat of hippos clashing over river territory.

...SulfuriCorks invaded my nostrils.

"Climb son, CLIMB!" Right. I'd have to kiss the memento goodbye, & Siggy would just have to suck it up.

Unfortunately my safety was still in jeopardy if I couldn't manage to extract my entangled, cyborg-wannabe foot. Everything below my left hip was internally sprained and mutilated: nagging ankle ligaments & the growing numbness of a possible dislocation. Only one leg could support any foundation.

Malibu stared into my eyes, and begged the universe for assistance as they beheld me. "You're gonna make it," Gutt told me, but shivers of dread were palpable -- yet I nodded.

Tentatively I balanced, clinging to the stock of a Rifle, activating my knee into a small pull. Surprisingly, although enmeshed by about 4 wires, it budged noticeably. Then came the hard part: there'd be no release without twist.

I furled the swollen ankle joint to half-rotate. Wires shed free except for one extra-loOOpy circumvention. My nerves blanched as I succeeded at cost. Mamacita!!... I flicked another maneuver in the opposite direction, and mercifully came un~tethered.

My lungs skipped breaths, whining as they deflated jaggedly; I was half-carried over bundles of wires as I angled my leg to the right side of the sputtering Engine. 1, 2! lunges, I snapped up straight as an arrow released from the bow of an archer, seemingly under moonlit atmosphere, marked by my sweet mentor to receive me.

Bull's Eye. I wheezed in the wonderful, acrid cheese-meld scent of his cloth, as he pressed me into a cradle. *We grinned* - our eyes swelled with the precious Corn-oil glow shuddering against the wall, as if so eager to embrace us that it could not contain its joy in knowing we were on the way to safety! Yet from the corner of my eye, I was drawn to where the portal's main bubble of light retreated to sullen grays & grease -- A tusk-helmed figure flickering among the lonely chamber.

Two midnight blue scarves emerged from baggy garbs at the threshold of impaling lighTusks of scarlet. Purple-green bruised checkers breatheDiamonDoses against the Crescent's auburn luminescence, leaving streaks of slimy pollution that condensed in the air. It was as if where the fingers' touch #)erased)# the light. The elongated hand was splayed open, cherishing something.

I squinted to pinpoint whatever it was that the spectator could be admiring. I saw two little ovals, strings swaying about either side. It glinted, seeming to hover in the air—just inches above squirming... cloth.

The memorabilia twisted in its clutch like oragami, and the garbs became adorned with streams of brass, the same color as the locket. I gaped in frusTraited reSIGnation, watching the Collector's limbs rupture into thirds & lick along the picture that had popped open ~~ before totally swallow the symbol I was meant to shelter. Maggy's wackiest bunch of looping wires zipped right against one strand of the nightmare as we passed beside. But slipped straight through, not seeming to register impact. The lovebirds weren't going to believe this account anymore than me...

Helplessly we flew toward the mouth of a portal that now resembled a hideouSMurk, having suddenly slipped on its side. Although somewhat curious as my vantage point crossed the shadowy Gaze, I decided to refuse any impulse to peek inside its cowl. I was too fed up to see some thief gloating.

Then our entire mass entered the Portal in a Glare of peach, to which the air pressure dropped. With a certain spice, my lungs strangely became unable to exhale, whilst my ears went a-throbbing—as if being forced down inside a thumping can of liquid, sponge-bathing my brain.

Then my awareness dwindleDissolveDrowsily.. arounDowNarrow to a thread~