Created

Part 4: Spectre, Chapter 13

Trellis

Appalatian mountain range, 230 miles from CHESF base

Swipe was ecstatic. He was running up and down the mountain peaks that were covered in snow. He'd been cooped up in that base for more than two weeks. It was good to get out. He checked the suit's speedometer. 920 miles per hour. And he was casually jogging. They had done something to alter his body systems because he was moving in time lapse. No, faster. The feeling was awesome. Moving this fast made his cares and worries disappear. He was free while running.

Swipe couldn't blame only the running for his happiness though. His suit was amazing also. It was based on black skin tight leather that was anti friction and made it so he didn't simultaneously combust. There was armor on his forearms, wrists, hands, thighs, calves and feet, chest, and it featured a helmet. The armor was an electric blue with yellow lightning designs on it. The armor was filled with nordoxophite, a recently discovered element that took the place of -13 on the table. It featured some anti-matter, which is where the negative number came in. When exposed to friction it became a super conductor, and glowed brightly, like an LED lightning rod or something. When he ran, or even vibrated a little, it glowed like a flash light. His helmet looked kind of like a bikers, only less bulky, and more framed to his face. The visor was triangular, and let him see as if he had no helmet on.

Running was fun, but the thing that Trellis really loved was the lightning.

Because the friction was so high, whenever Trellis moved faster than 300 miles per hour, he generated huge amounts of electricity. This blue lightning swathed his body and made him too hot to handle. Literally. The lightning hit key points on his armor that made sure he would have enough lightning when and where he needed it: it formed four rings around his wrist and going up to his elbow, going up and down his calves in two rings, and coming onto his chest in a V, and going back to create a trail about ten feet long.

Since he was blazing hot, Swipe could melt the snow where he ran, so he wrote graffiti on the sides of mountains. He wrote things like: Swipe wuz here and Dark Atlas sux. He felt like a normal, juvenile again, and not some new ragtag superhero.

After a while of running, Swipe got hungry. Very, very hungry. He figured he could go back to the base, but what would be the point in that. He was out in the wild. He loved it here. He would just find some poor, defenseless animal to kill and eat. Preferably something small. Trellis thought. He didn't want to eat a whole deer or something, but a something like a squirrel would do. His stomach rumbled. Maybe an enraged badger that is a bully to other animals. He corrected.

As soon as he thought that, a crashing sound came through the brush to his right. He looked that way, and before he had any time to react(Which for him was very fast) a moose broke through the trees and trampled him.

Take into account that the average moose weighs about 1500 pounds. And it just stepped on his sternum, collarbone, left arm, and upper thigh, then picked him up with its horns, and tossed him down 375 feet of a steep mountain.

It definitely broke some bones.

Swipe layed there for a long, dizzy with pain and disbelief that he was just attacked by a fracking moose. When he got up the strength to call, he clicked the radio button on the side of his helmet.

"Trellis? Hello?" It was Sandburn. "We were observing your muscular system when your vitals spiked. What happened?"

"Hey glass." Swipe responded. "I was attacked by an enraged moose. It stepped on me." Swipe winced as his collarbone twitched. "It also broke, like, all the bones in my body."

"A moose? I thought that they were wiped out from the flares."

"Me too. Could you send medical evac maybe? I don't think I can move."

"We'll send backup that will arrive within seven minutes, but it will be a while before we are able to send a medic. Tomorrow morning at sunrise will be the earliest.

"Seven minutes? That's fast!"

"Well, June is a fast flyer." Swipe heard Glass shout some orders about prepping something, then some background chatter.

Swipe thought for a moment, then came back on something Glass had said. "Wait, June can fly?!"

"Yes. We have given her the power to simultaneously combust, and control nuclear energy. By using huge amounts of power, she is able to fly about 60 percent as fast as you're able to run."

"Cool" was all Trellis was able to say before he blacked out.

Swipe couldn't remember very much about the pickup. He remembered a glowing red angel come and grab him, not feeling anything under his head or feet, and a rush of wind on his face. He remembered the sounds of shouting, an explosion, screams. He remembered flying again, and then he remembered being in a lab, with blurry white labcoats working on him. He remembered Glass saying to hold on. But with all of those things, the one he remembered most was June standing over him after he was transported to his room. He remembered her holding his hand and leaning over him and kissing him on his forehead. That was when the medicine actually kicked in and he actually slept.