The Legion portal user was back. Ferry teleported to grab Corrosion out of Barrier Maiden's prison as Paris began spreading poison mist as quickly as he could. The inside of the shield area was cramped, but Ferry only needed to be in there for a moment. Soon, she and Corrosion were in place to pursue the fleeing civilians.
One of them had to be the portal master.
They all looked scared. None of them looked like they were paying close attention to the fight with the intention of interfering in it.
"You got it?" she asked Corrosion. When he nodded, she teleported back to Shell and grabbed her. With another hop, Shell was in position to block off another section of the crowd.
"Dammit, can we get that Ferry freak already?" The man who'd been fighting Shell yelled angrily as he started slipping across the ice again.
As if to grant his wish, a portal opened up underneath Ferry.
Shit!
She tumbled through, to where she wasn't sure. A quick glance at her surroundings gave her an address and she hopped back to the fight. Cold Snap had half-frozen Jumper, but he was holding on like his life depended on it. What kind of moron was he?
Anyway, Ferry needed to get Cold Snap away before the poison really started affecting her. Achilles was already coughing from the gas. Barrier Maiden and the man in the balaclava were pursuing their respective opponents.
Ferry held her collar up over her nose to avoid breathing the poison and teleported next to Cold Snap. She grabbed the girl's arm and gave Jumper a good hard smack to the head.
He let go of Cold Snap.
And tackled Ferry instead.
At first she didn't realize what had happened. Then she landed hard on the ice and slid away from Cold Snap. With Jumper's arms wrapped around her torso.
Cold Snap got up and hurried over, grabbing Jumper's shirt and freezing it. He kicked at her, and the three of them tumbled across the icy ground in a strange dog pile.
Ferry was dizzy. She wasn't used to fighting. Did everyone have to get used to the world spinning like this? Jumper let go of her for half a second with one hand, then grabbed her wrist with it. Next, he grabbed her other wrist.
Shit.
Shit shit shit.
She couldn't teleport away if he was latched onto her like this.
Then, as they tumbled, a portal opened up underneath them.
When they stopped falling, the three of them were in an unfamiliar blank room. Only a couple rotting old wooden crates sat on the dirty floor.
"What?" Ferry gasped, kicking at Jumper again.
Where was this? Where were they? She couldn't teleport as easily if she didn't know where she was. So where was this?
"Ferry!" Cold Snap beat on Jumper again, freezing him as quickly as she could. When he finally couldn't take it anymore, he let go of her with a gasp. The two women kicked him away and Cold Snap grabbed Ferry's hand.
Jumper struggled to get up, shivering from the ice that clung to his clothes and dripped onto the floor.
"Where are we?" Cold Snap asked, fear in her eyes.
"Dunno. But we should be able to go up." Ferry closed her eyes and concentrated for a second. How tall was Arx? So...probably that much.
The teleportation didn't work. But no matter where she was, they should have come out either at the Top or above it. If they were above Arx, she'd be able to hold her breath and teleport back into it, but the teleportation not working meant that there was some kind of object blocking her proposed landing area.
Were they in the Subways? Ferry took a step back and tried to teleport again. Footsteps echoed in the corridor outside, running towards them.
"Ferry?" Cold Snap clung to her like a scared child, shivering as if the ice was freezing her too.
"One second!"
Nothing to it. Ferry just had to go as high as she could. Based on the amount of atmosphere the Earth had and how high Arx was...
Finally, their surroundings changed. They floated in the air weightlessly for a moment, then started falling down. They were almost directly above the center of Arx, and Ferry quickly teleported again before gravity could speed them up too much.
She took a gasp of proper air, her legs shaking as she fell to the ground. Cold Snap let go of her and rolled away, then stood up to watch over her.
"Abort, Elisa! Abort! Get everyone back here now!"
Baylor's voice echoed in her ear as Ferry took a couple more breaths. She stood and grabbed Cold Snap, then teleported them back to the lair. With about two more seconds to catch her breath again, Ferry went back for the others.
Team Chaos had done their job well. Barrier Maiden had Corrosion locked up again, but he'd managed to take out several bystanders before she caught him. First, Ferry teleported him back.
Next she hopped back, her vision going blurry from exhaustion. Long teleports were more effort than shorter ones, and she'd gone very high into very thin air. The poison wasn't helping either.
But...with one more jump. Just one more. Then she could rest.
"Twin says to pull back!" Ferry yelled, motioning for Paris and Shell to get to her. They obliged as best they could, dodging Achilles and Balaclava-Freak as they slid towards her. The ice was already half melted, but that didn't make it totally safe.
With one last short teleport, Ferry grabbed both their hands and got back to Team Chaos's hideout.
She gasped for air as she fell to the floor, her back heaving from the stress. Not just the physical stress of all those teleports, but the mental stress from being taken by the Legion's portal freak.
"Elisa!" Baylor ran over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, checking to see if she was okay.
"I'm...fine..." Ferry gasped, trying to sit on her own. Instead, Baylor pulled her head onto his shoulder and glanced around.
"What happened?" Shell asked, frowning. "Things were going so well."
"The Legion teleported us somewhere," Cold Snap replied. "I don't know where. Some featureless room. It took a while for Ferry to be able to teleport out of there."
"Do you have any idea where it was?" Baylor asked, looking gently at Ferry.
"No clue. But it had a lot of obstacles above it. I had to teleport about as far up as I thought I could without getting into the death zone of the atmosphere. Could still barely breathe, but we were close enough to the Top that I could get back in."
"Somewhere down low," Baylor muttered, frowning in thought.
"The Subways?" Paris asked, tilting his head sideways.
"No," Ferry replied. "My second teleport assumed we were in the Subways. It wasn't far enough."
"Somewhere below the Subways? Isn't that just, in midair below the city?" Corrosion asked, frowning.
"Maybe someone has a Miracle that lets them create extra spaces?" Shell pondered, looking them over. "There's all kinds of Miracles. One might be able to create some kind of pocket dimension or something."
"Then why could she teleport out of it?" Baylor asked. He let Ferry go and walked over to his computer.
"What do you mean? If you teleport far enough - "
"No, an extradimensional space doesn't make sense. No matter how far up she tried to teleport, she'd probably just hit obstacles."
"There was a door," Cold Snap said. "And footsteps coming from outside it."
"I don't want to know what would have happened if I had gotten out of there any later," Ferry added.
"There is something below the Subways," Baylor muttered. "Not much, and I didn't think there was any way for a person to get in there, but if the Legion has a way..."
"Wait, you think they burrowed a room into the sewer pipes or something?" Corrosion asked with a laugh.
"Occam's Razor," Baylor replied. "The simplest explanation tends to be the right one. If there are corridors and rooms below the Subways..."
"Then we don't need to worry about an extradimensional space Miracle," Ferry finished.
"We should keep an eye out for both possibilities of course," Baylor said, "but I'll look more into the space below the Subways. If the Legion has made their base down there..."
"We might have a good place for playtime," Paris said with a grin. "Achilles really should share his secret hideout with the rest of us, shouldn't he?"
