The Adventures
of Autumn
Episode
3. The Return of Darkstorm
L’Espion
with Melissa Gallant
Email:
Lespion@msn.com
Chapter
6
Resurrection
Beastlike she crammed raw fish into her mouth, shredding it with her strong white teeth and stripping the carcass right down to the bones. Finished, she tossed the skeleton into the growing midden of freshwater prawns, snail shells, and other water creatures she had managed to scrounge. The fish was the largest prey she had managed to catch and it signified the fact that she was daily growing stronger.
It had been touch and go for the first few
weeks. The fall into
Hitting the surface of the dark waters of the gorge was like slamming into concrete. The force of the fall shattered the locks that secured the heavy links and allowed her to float free. Barely conscious and badly injured, she was barely alive as she crawled out of the river and had no memory of how she had somehow managed to survive.
She had managed to make it into the shelter of a small grove of trees, a bit of dumb luck that had probably saved her life. By burrowing into the dead leaves beneath the trees she had managed to survive the night. She lay there for two days, too weak to do anything except crawl to the edge of the river to slake her thirst.
Her incredible powers of healing had done the rest, enabling her to recover to a point where she could feed herself by fishing for shellfish along the water’s edge. However, the effort of healing had drained her body of its reserves of strength. Climbing the hundreds of feet to the top of the gorge was out of the question. First she had to completely heal and rebuild her strength.
And then there was the matter of her memory. She had no idea who she was; only that she had powers of healing that were far beyond the normal. Her amnesia lasted a full week before her memories came flowing back and with it an undying hatred for the villain who had tried to kill her and the heroine Autumn who had imprisoned her. She vowed undying vengeance on both of them.
On her third day in the gorge she had put together a small shelter. Unable to do much more than crawl she had dragged a few pieces of driftwood together and piled leaves in it to keep warm. With no way to make a fire it was the best she could do.
She had spent the next few weeks dragging herself back and forth between the river and her shelter, feeding on what she could scavenge from the river and the tiny rocky beach on which she was stranded. There was little else she could do. The only way out was to either swim, and take her chances against the strong current or attempt to climb the hundreds of feet to the top of the gorge. She had not the strength to do either and in any case had not healed sufficiently to even consider such a strenuous and dangerous undertaking.
And so she had waited, slowly regaining her strength and healing bit by bit. She would probably have healed faster had she been able to find anything larger than the small river prawns. The largest was no bigger than four inches long and it took a lot of them to make a meal. She rounded out her diet by eating grubs, slugs, snails, and even worms. It was quite amazing how her dietary tastes changed when face with starvation.
But today she had actually had the strength and speed to catch a fish. It wouldn’t be long now. As she swallowed the last piece of flesh she felt strong for the first time in weeks. Now she would sleep and tomorrow fish again. A few more decent meals and she would have the strength to scale the sides of the gorge. Then she would see about avenging herself on the man who had sought to murder her and on the heroine who had dared to thwart her plans.
She scaled the canyon wall in the late afternoon, timing her arrival at the top with nightfall. After all, she was completely nude and despite the fact that she had bathed daily in the river, she hadn’t combed her hair in weeks. Her strength fully returned, she accomplished the climb without difficulty, and clambered over the edge of the gorge in almost the exact spot where Darkstorm and his thugs had hurled her to her supposed death.
“Now for some clothing,” she thought. But first she needed transportation.
It wasn’t hard to find what she wanted. The gorge was often frequented by teens looking for a little back seat sex. Shadowcloud decided to make the first couple she encountered wish that they had chosen a more public location.
As it turned out, she had a choice. There were three vehicles parked on the edge of the gorge. She selected the BMW, surprising a man and woman who were much too engrossed with one another to notice her until she grabbed each of them by the legs and tossed them naked onto the ground. “It’s a nice night,” she growled, ignoring their protests, “I’m sure you won’t have any problem finding a way to keep warm.” Putting the car in gear she headed into town, heading for a large suburban mall. Absentmindedly she turned on the radio as she drove.
She wanted music. What she got was non-stop news on every station. “A giant sphere,” she mused. “That son-of-a-bitch Darkstorm’s been damned busy during the time I was away. Just how long was I in that canyon?”
“And Autumn’s disappeared. That bastard Darkstorm is probably fucking her ass right now.”
She drove around to the mall freight entrance, her mind buzzing over the news about Darkstorm and Autumn. In a way the news simplified her mission of vengeance. She now knew where both of her enemies were. She could deal with them both at the same time. All she had to do was find a way into the sphere.
She stopped at the freight door. As she had hoped there was no one around. With her strength it was a simple matter to force the back door and move into the warehouse area of a large sporting goods store. She wouldn’t be able to find anything as good as her original costume, but there should be some tight-fitting outfits that would do until she could have one made up.
Finding a secluded section of the store she climbed to the top of a large industrial shelf and lay down. Now she had to wait until the store closed.
Time ticked on, but Shadowcloud was in no great hurry. She had just spent several months at the bottom of a riverine gorge. She doubted very much that a few hours would make much difference. Finally the sounds of activity died down and she dropped to the floor of the warehouse.
She moved into the darkened store. Here and there a few lights had been left on for security purposes, but it didn’t matter. Her senses were more than acute enough to pick up the sounds of any approaching night watchman and she could see just as well in darkness as in daylight.
Moving to the women’s section of the store she found an assortment of expensive spandex exercise outfits. She selected one that was especially form-fitting and put it on. “Mmmm,” she murmured. “Not exactly my colour preference, but it is a perfect fit.” She spun in front of a full length mirror studying her exquisite form. Tall, and perfectly formed, her gorgeous full-breasted figure was beautifully highlighted by the tight-fitting red outfit she had put on.
It might also have been better if there was some sort of mask available to obscure her features, however, she was able to improvise my using her razor claws to slice a piece of material into a mask that would cover her eyes and cheekbones. “Better than nothing,” she thought. Now there was just one more thing.
Moving to the service corridor behind the store she moved along it until
she came to the back entrance of a
pharmacy. It took her only seconds
to force the door. Once inside
she raided the cosmetics section and spent a few minutes in front of a makeup
mirror dealing with her hair.
Surprisingly, in spite of the time spend at the bottom of
She returned to the BMW and drove swiftly toward the waterfront. There was no possibility of driving right to the sphere as the entire area was cordoned off by the police and military. However, there was more than one way to reach her objective.
Driving to the other side of the harbour she abandoned the BMW and headed for the dock. This was an area primarily used for the docking of luxury craft, and it took her only a short time to find what she needed. It was a small retail outlet renting jet skis. Breaking into the store took only a few moments and just a few minutes more to appropriate a suitable water craft. Just a few hours before dawn she headed across the harbour toward the enormous sphere.
“That SOB Darkstorm never fails to amaze me,” she thought as she neared the gigantic structure. “Where does he get the financing for this sort of thing?”
A few hundred metres from the sphere she was forced to ditch the jet ski. It was here that she ran into heavy security in the form of several small patrol boats. There was no way to avoid them, so she stepped into the water and swam toward the sphere.
Swimming in the filthy water of Grand Capital’s harbour was not Shadowcloud’s idea of a pleasant outing, but she was not about to let a little sewage deter her. Diving deep to avoid detection, she swam to the side of the sphere. As she had hoped, the military patrols ended a few hundred feet from the sphere, allowing her to hide in the shadow of its bulk. Now she just had to find a way in.
She tested her claws on the heavy steel hull of the sphere. If she had to she could cut her way in, but it would be somewhat time consuming and might alert Darkstorm. It would be far better if she could find some sort of hatch. She knew from the news reports that there was a hatch right on top of the sphere, but using that entrance seemed a bit too obvious and so she looked for an alternative.
It took her until a few minutes before dawn to locate the underwater hatch. As she supposed, an object the size of the sphere couldn’t have just one entrance and she located the hatch about thirty feet below the surface.
It was, of course, sealed from the inside, but it was not designed to keep out someone like Shadowcloud. Using her diamond-hard claws she cut through the locking mechanism and yanked open the door. The internal air pressure of the sphere kept the water out and Shadowcloud found herself in a small chamber. She recognized it at once for what it was, a diving chamber allowing entrance from the sphere to the outside underwater. She also recognized that the entrance would not likely be left unguarded. Surely there would be some sort of alarm or sensor to tell the inhabitants of the sphere that it had been invaded. She would have to move quickly.
Hoisting herself from the diving chamber she found herself in a room equipped with a variety of scuba and other underwater gear. A single door led from the room, giving her little choice of direction. Swiftly she moved to the door and opening it found herself in a metal corridor. More to the point she found herself looking into the lens of a security camera. It was too late to avoid being discovered. With a growl of anger she lashed out with her clawed hand, shattering the camera. Now it was even more important that she get to Darkstorm before he was able to bring all of his security apparatus against her.
She glanced left and right. Both directions seemed equal, but in her current predicament going the wrong way might prove fatal. Without any means of judging what way was the best she went right, hurrying away from the camera she had broken. With any luck she would be out of the area before Darkstorm had a chance to react.
The corridor ended in a sealed door. Not surprisingly it was locked, but once again locked did not mean that it could hold Shadowcloud. Attacking the locking mechanism, her claws ripped through the heavy steel as if it was cheese. This time she hesitated before moving into the next corridor. A quick peek around the edge of the doorway revealed another security camera. Twisting off a piece of the locking wheel she exposed just enough of her body to hurl the heavy piece of steel into the camera lens; then she stepped into the corridor.
“Got to keep moving,” she thought. Disabling the cameras might blind the enemy, but almost certainly she could be tracked from broken camera to broken camera. Darkstorm might not know exactly where she was, but he could track her movements simply by noting the progression of disabled cameras. Her only chance was to move as quickly as possible and hope that she could move faster than Darkstorm could react.
Swiftly she darted down corridor after corridor. Navigating the interior of the sphere was like being inside some huge maze. Shadowcloud began to feel more and more like a lab animal caught in some sort of experiment to test its intelligence. “This isn’t working,” she muttered. She now realized that in her desire for vengeance she had overlooked the most important factor in achieving it – a plan. She was deep inside Darkstorm’s lair with no idea of where her adversary was, but almost certainly he was now aware of her. She suddenly realized with a twinge of fear that she had blundered into a trap; a trap of her own making.
“Oh god,” she thought. “I’ve got to get out of here.” All the horror of what Darkstorm had done to her came flooding back. If her caught her again…
“No,” she said aloud. “I won’t let that happen. He won’t take me again.”
And then she heard a noise. She snapped her head in the direction of the sound. “No,” she screamed. “NO!”
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