It was too soon to breathe a sigh of relief, but I did anyway. My fear had been that the Peepers would have opened fire on their own helicopter, but it seemed they were far less enthusiastic about shooting their own military equipment than they were powered teenaged fugitives.

Ahead of me to my left Clang continued to hold on to the hanging strap to keep himself rooted in place. His metallic weight and strength helped root him where he was standing. He held his share of the carry bags by their handles with his right hand.

Clang, though his face was still covered in the sand-like gold and silver encrusted mask, had a look of amazement on his face. The whiteness of his eyes and the steam there had dissipated, showing the gold and silver tinge to his eyes instead. Clang looked at me, and that was when a wry grin reached his face. His voice rang out, but with the rotor blades chopping up the air and the wind buffeting in from the open sides of the helicopter, it was near impossible to make out what he was trying to say. Even so, my best guess was that he had tried to say, 'That was awesome!'.

I gave him a thumbs up with my free Slip-suit-gloved left hand. My other hand kept a tight hold of my share of the filled-to-the-brim carry bags. My stomach lurched as the helicopter continued its upward ascent. I was thankful to have the combined use of the Slip-suit's adhesive qualities and the sinew-boosted strength to keep my fear of falling out of the helicopter at bay.

It reminded me of when I had first ridden in a helicopter way back when I was first flown from Lintern Village all the way to the Wedder Gorge facility. Back then I had worn a different kind of mask – an eye-mask - and I didn't then know just how insane my life would become within such a short span of time. Though not physically exhausted, the mental fatigue from having tapped into the power so much during my fight with Chips and Lure and Soaks was starting to take its toll. I needed a good long rest and a break. A real break, a put-my-feet-up-and-binge-a-movie-franchise-whilst-on-my-8th-cup-of-tea kind of break.

Ahead, at the front of the helicopter, I could see Miss Toontastic standing in the middlemost part of the cockpit. She was bent forward, her long curled black hair and cream coloured dress rippling heavily. She still had her left arm wrapped around the neck of the Peeper officer pilot.

Beyond Miss Toontastic, framed by the front windscreen, the two tower blocks of Fauncherton Green I had seen when we first arrived at the town climbed steadily closer.

Miss Toontastic must have said something to the Peeper pilot because the helicopter climbed ever higher into the air.

I wondered if Miss Toontastic was planning to have the helicopter land at the top of one of the tower blocks, but given how close we were , we would have needed to have slowed and come to a stop much sooner if that were our intended landing spot.

No, I thought, Miss Toontastic's probably just making sure we're heading far away from Fauncherton Green.

The plan, as far as I could reason out, was for the Peeper pilot to land us somewhere far away from Fauncherton Green and the Peepers, and the Sub-Divisioners that had tried to capture or kill us. Presumably we would then disable the helicopter's controls, make sure the Peeper pilot couldn't easily contact his Peeper comrades, and then Clang, Miss Toontastic, and I would go our merry way together.

And I had high hopes for that to happen. But that's not what happened. Just as the helicopter climbed high enough so that the top of the left-most tower-block was beneath us, something went horribly wrong.

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The helicopter started to tailspin.

Before I could think to do anything about this a sudden agonizing pain tore into my right thigh. I had all of a half-second to look down to see Soaks chomping down on my right leg.

I made an effort to fight him off, but he was already yanking his entire body back, and me along with him, right out of the helicopter. His huge fangs sunk out of my leg just as we entered free-fall.

Between the pain in my leg and my complete inability to stop myself from spinning over and over again through the air, I barely had any time to think. Just as I made the mental effort to try and slow my perception of time, it was already over.

Pain. Landing hard on a solid surface after reaching peak free-fall velocity. My right arm crunched beneath me, the bone breaking. The air in my lungs stopped short. The pain climbed higher and higher, but my body remained prone, unable to do anything except tell me how I couldn't breathe or move at all.

I came to my senses and I wasn't sure how much time had passed. I pushed myself up with my unbroken left arm and looked around.

I was on top of one of the tower blocks. And the helicopter I had just been inside sank out of view as it continued its tailspin towards the ground.

I felt the violent rumbling combined with the shriek of metal as the helicopter crashed somewhere far below.

My neck, which was in so much pain, begged for me to stop moving it. Even so, I slowly searched the tower block roof around me and quickly found who I was looking for.

Soaks. He was still in his large, chimeric, salamander-headed form. He was also on his side, prone, having had the wind and strength slammed out of him from the fall as well.

That shudder, I thought, remembering before that there had been a sudden shaking of the helicopter, almost like it had hit something when we had first begun our ascent away from the mansion. It had been Soaks. He had climbed onto the underside of the helicopter. And, more than likely, he had used his acid to burn away parts of the helicopter, causing the crash.

I was finally able to breathe out several desperate lungfuls of air. And then, once that fight to do something as simple as breathe passed, I let out a ragged sigh that carried some of the Slip-suited resonance to it.

Should have saw that coming, I thought, I knew that escape had been too easy.

There wasn't any time to waste. Clang and Miss Toontastic had been in the helicopter too when it crashed. They were tough, but tough enough to survive a helicopter crash? I wasn't so sure.

Soaks stirred ahead of me. I needed to heal, and quick. Because there was no way he wasn't about to start the last round of our fight.

I tapped into the nodes of the power, practically begging it to work in tandem with the medical knowledge and the healing power to undo as much of the damage as it could. Right away, as if it had been waiting with baited breath, the power began the healing process.

I'd forgotten just how painful it was to heal. I let out an agonized cry, trembling where I stood.

The mental fatigue which followed was held at bay only by the sobering nature of the pain. My broken right arm snapped back into place, bones sealing, the tendons and muscles knitting back together beneath the Slip-suit. I was as physically and mentally fatigued as I was both times I had lost control to the Fox-Frog-Monster.

Not again, I thought, pleadingly, Never again.

Soaks let out a hiss. He had finally woken up. The slits of his salamander eyes searched the tower block roof before him. Lucidity returned to his monstrous face. His gaze moved slowly over to me, and I saw then not just recognition, but seething hatred.

Was that hatred justified? Clang, Miss Toontastic, and I, had simply refused to let ourselves be tricked or overpowered by him and his fellow Sub-Divisioners. There was no compromise to be made there.

Let him seethe, Slip resonated in my mind, We're not going to back down.

Right, I thought back.

The fresh holes in my right leg finished healing up, and the worst of the break in my arm had healed too. Both however still felt weak and tender, like sprains that would take days, if not weeks, to properly heal under normal non-powered circumstances.

It would have to be enough.

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