Pure shock and adrenaline woke me up. I was blinking rapidly, trying to recorrect the fuzz and blankness of my sight. My head was pounding, and it felt like I was inhaling chunks of brick into my lungs. The pop and sparkle noises of ripped wires and damaged electronics echoed into my stuffed ears along with a groaning noise. I was surprisingly still strapped to the seat and with my vision returning I could finally gauge the damage, it was what I expected, half of the plane was missing. Where the other half of the plane was supposed to be was now filled with sparse trees caked with snow and plains, splinters of broken trees were scattered in what was left of the cabin. I wiggled my fingers and toes which was the first step, figuring out if I was paralyzed or missing a limb, next step was properly moving them. I groaned as I moved my hand up to my head, I touched my temple where blood was slowly pooling out onto over my ears however that was the least of my concerns. There was an ache worse than anywhere else on my body emitting from my gut. When I looked down, I saw a giant jagged slice of metal sticking out of my abdomen. I wanted to scream but there was no time, I took the jagged rod in my hands and tried to pull, the pain ripped out a scream from my throat anyways.

"Stop, you're going to kill yourself." A voice called out lightly, I looked up and I saw Sam looking at me. One of his eyes were bloodshot and his arm was bent in an unusual way other than that he wasn't extremely damaged.

"I can heal myself. I just need to take this out." I groaned, continuing to pull but the piece of metal wouldn't budge.

"Stop!" He shouted, his voice going hoarse in the process. "You're only making it worse, you're too weak."

I wanted to argue but he was right. It was going to be hard to heal if I struggled to pull it out. "Shit!" I shouted out, "You need to pull it out, then we need to find everyone else."

"What, no. I have a broken arm and what part of it'll get worse didn't you get."

"Sam. Pull it out." I snarled to him. I forced a feeling of trust and fear in him, fear to make him act quickly and trust to make him believe my words.

He looked at every uneasy. "Fine," he bit the words as he unbuckled his seatbelt with one hand. His legs wobbled as he got to his feet, I was worried he would collapse and impale himself with the scrap metal in my gut leaving me with a whole new mess to deal with, but he managed well. He wrapped his arm around the piece of scrap to get a good grip on it. He tried to yank it but struggled at first, then he placed his leg on the seat for support and used all the force he had left and ripped the metal out of my gut, he stumbled back into his seat with the bloodied piece in hand. Like white-hot fury pouring out of me, I screamed in pain as blood spilt out of me. For a few seconds, I let my body relax and it began to slowly stitch itself together. My already fickle energy drained as the wound closed.

"Okay, let me fix your arm, then we can find everyone else," I said softly, I struggled to my feet and took his arm in my hand. More energy left me as his hand crunched back to its natural state, and when I was done, I felt lightheaded but managed to keep my head up.

"Sit down, Stephanie. Take a breather." Sam said as he flexed his arm.

"We don't have time," I said as I looked out the broken half of the plane, staring into the trees for anything. "My friends are out there, and they may be in worse shape than we are. The more time we waste, the higher the chance they die."

"They might already be dead. We should focus on finding a way out of here."

"The fact that we survived means they could have too. I'm not going to leave without them." I said as jumped down off the plane onto the crunchy floor. I examined the crash, the seat the Fisher was sitting in was gone, in the back section of the plane was the stewardess, impaled by a large branch the width of my arm that even I couldn't have healed. In the remaining bit of the cockpit was the dead co-pilot, in his chest were chunks of the control board imbedded in his chest like he was a pincushion, but it looked like it happened before the crash.

"You're forgetting that you're supposed to protecting me." He shouted from above.

"You have to be joking."

"I'm being realistic. They could easily be dead, searching for them instead of retreating out of the tree and finding safety would be stupid. You have no energy and if we do find them and you decide to heal them, you'll faint. The best thing we can do is get to safety." He dropped down to me and looked at the rest of wreckage, he spotted the dead stewardess and looked like he was going to throw up. "This is why we need to get out of here." He pointed at snowy peak of Mount St. Helens the grew in the distance. "The mountain is south-east of us and I think we are close to Spirit Lake, we should be able to walk around the mountainside of the lake and make it to a main road in three possibly four hours."

"I haven't forgotten that I need to protect you, but I have a duty to my friends to make sure they are alive and if they aren't," I stopped briefly. "I still owe it to them." I pointed in the same direction as where he had. "A smoke plume, faint but I can still make it out past the trees. We're going to their crash site first, then we go to the main road." In my words, I laced sympathy within to try persuade him.

He looked at me, he had anger within them, "We're losing time. Let's go find them."

The plane had crashed just under the ridge, when we got to the top, we could see everything from miles around and from there we spotted the other half of the plane. It was submerging underneath the waters of Spirit Lake, my heart began to sink like the plane with hopelessness. Sam put his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off, refusing to believe that they were dead. We began to descend the icy ridge slowly, following the easiest slope of it down. The bottom of the ridge was covered in trees that obstructed the view from above which seemed like the best place to be. By the time we were at the bottom, the plane had disappeared underneath the break of the wave, the only thing that stopped me from running into the water was Sam holding me back besides the logs clinging to the bay.

"Don't be stupid. You'll die of hypothermia before you reach it." He turned me around to face him. "If they are still on the plane, then their dead. There is nothing you can do about it."

I wanted to scream at him. There was no way I lost my friends an hour into our mission. "They had to have gotten out, there is no way that they are dead," I said to myself with Sam still holding my shoulders, I was making any excuse I could.

"Stephanie, they are gone. You can take time after we are out of this to grieve them. I just need you to be present right now until we are somewhere safe."

"This shouldn't have happened," I said to him.

"Yeah, I can gather that much. However, we couldn't predict that Vortex would get into our plane. Let's keep our heads on straight. That 'Magnisos' guy could still be alive. If we keep within these trees, we should be fine."

"SAM!" A voice echoed down the ridge, limping down the slope in his suit was Fisher, his eyebrow was split open. "Thank God you are alive."

Sam went up to the man and embraced him, it was good to see that someone else survived. Deep inside I had wished it was one of my friends, but one life is better than none. "You son of a bitch. What happened to you? You weren't in the back of the plane."

"My seat got ripped out of the plane when we crashed. Landed in some trees that broke my fall, messed up my leg though." He said. "Where is everyone else?"

"The other half of the plane is in the water," I said, still holding on to the belief that they were alive.

"At least you and Sam are okay." He said with relief in his eyes. "What's the plan?"

"We're going to go around the lake, if we go northeast, we should be able to make our way to the main road. It'll be like that time we got lost in Peru." Sam said, with a smile.

"Definitely." He agreed with the orange headed man.

"You lead, I need Stephanie to check on my arm," Sam said to the man. Fisher nodded and began to walk forward. Sam held onto my arm until he felt like Fisher was out of earshot.

"That's not Fisher, is it?" I asked him.

"No, it isn't."

"He must be working with the other person from Vortex," I said as we followed fake Fisher. "He must be here to finish the job if any of us survived."

"There might be more of them around, he could even be leading us to them."

I looked at fake Fisher, he didn't have any weapons on him but that didn't mean we could underestimate him. "Stay alert, watch the environment for anyone. Say something whether you recognize them or not. We should assume that we're being led to a trap."

"Great, what do we do?"

"Play along until we can get the upper hand."

"There is a cove around that bend that would make a good ambush point. It's also the only other way to the main road, least we go back up the ridge." He pointed out.

"We take him by surprise then. Jump him, pry any information he has about how they got to us and if there any more of them out there using my powers. Easy." I said with a smile.

We walked faster to catch up to the man but made sure to stay in his blind spot, I pushed any thought of lethal force away leaving my blade tucked in its sheath. Sam and I looked at each other before Sam pounced onto the man's back. Fake Fisher flailed trying to get Sam off his back, I went down for his legs. I grappled them together with my arms and legs, slowly the giant lost balance and collapsed into the dirt. He squirmed on the floor as Sam held him down and as I went over to his face.

"What the hell are you doing?" He shouted at us.

"Cut the crap, we know you aren't Fisher," I said to the man on the floor.

"What, are you joking? Sam, you can't listen to her."

"Fisher doesn't call me Sam and neither have us have been to Peru."

Sam brought the man up to knees and he stared in silence, I placed my hands on his temple and pushed one emotion into the man, anger. It was easier for someone to slip up if they were angry. "We've got you, I mean if you are going to change into someone, at least act like them. We had you pegged in seconds, like some discount shapeshifter." I told the man, encouraging anger. "Now you're at our mercy, alone."

"I'm not alone you bitch," He hissed.

"Are you talking about that fake pilot? I don't see him anywhere." I scoffed.

"There's more of us." He growled.

"Where?"

"Up yours." He said as he spat at me, I wiped my face with a part of my palm and forced more anger into the man.

"You know what," I said to Sam. "I just think whoever he's with doesn't trust a pathetic shapeshifting low life like him."

"Screw you, Magnisos trusts me. He trusted me enough to turn into this giant and lead you to us."

"Clearly he didn't account for your incompetence," I said.

"What did you do with the real Fisher," Sam asked the man.

"Dead, like the rest of your friends." He snarled, he was almost convincing but my powers caught the lie.

"Try again and tell the truth or I'll slit your throat." I pulled out my knife and placed it against his neck, still with my hand on his head, I made him feel fear.

"We pulled him from the crash and the people I'm with took him to our camp."

"Which is?" I pressed the knife harder against his neck.

"In the cove, you were basically walking right towards it," he said scowling at the ground, I moved the blade away from his neck. A trickle of blood dribbled out of the cut, I placed my finger over it and closed up the wound.

"Okay, new plan then." Sam said, "We go the opposite direction and scrap this whole mission."

"Are my friends dead?" I asked fake Fisher.

"Swim into the lake and find out for yourself." He said

I was beginning to think that maybe Juan, Ellie and Lydia might actually be gone. "We can't leave Sam. If my friends are -" my voice caught itself. "then we owe it to them to see this through."

"Stephanie. I feel like you are going to say we should go to the camp. I really hope you aren't."

"Sorry to disappoint you, if that's the only way forward that doesn't cause us to backtrack, we're going to have to go through the camp."

"Then you wouldn't mind us taking you there." A voice said from behind Sam, I looked up and there was a group of people around us.

"I told you I wasn't alone." Fake Fisher said. One of the Vortex men extended their arms like ropes and wrapped us in ropes. "Let's go see Magnisos."

The people from Vortex corralled us between themselves with extendo arms holding onto us from behind. We were forced down the coast into the cove, through the thick of trees. There were five of them including fake Fisher and extendo arms. Sam was squirming a lot trying to break out of the arm vice, but it never worked. We walked for about half an hour of silence as I tried to figure out what to do next, I wasn't sure how many more of them would be at the camp. Whenever I tried to talk to one of the captors or Sam, I would be shut down by the fake Fisher. I took in the lay of the land, trying you see anything helpful around besides water and trees except that's all there was around us, dense forest and unsteady water. In the thick of the trees, barely obscured in the forest was a camp. Large grey tents pitched up with a spread of leaves over them surrounded by shrubs and bushes that were a washed-out green with thick layers of white encasing them. They were so well hidden that if weren't walking towards it, I wouldn't have noticed its existence. There was a central fire pit that smouldered as it let off a thin pillar of smoke that dissipated before it even reached the canopy. People were in the camp, maybe five more of them and they all stared at us as we were herded into the cam behind the trees. Close by to the camp were two of road cars being given a wash down. Extendo arms threw us against a tree where another of the Vortex goons tied us to it.

"Do you have to be so rough," Sam grunted.

"Shut up, rich boy." Fake Fisher said to him.

"Copy, please out of the prisoner's face." Extendo arms told fake Fisher.

"I was just beginning to get used to this face." The man turned into a spiral of mud before shrinking into a smaller form.

"You're just a kid," I said in shock, the person who was once a tall man was now a twelve-year-old boy in baggy shorts and an oversized shirt.

"So, what." He shouted at us. "That doesn't even matter."

"Of course, it does," I said. "You're so young. Don't you have a family? Don't you want to do something more with your life?"

The boy opened his mouth ready to retort. "Clay, leave it be and go get Magnisos," Extendo said.

Clay wanted to say something again but left to look for Magnisos. "Where is the real Fisher?" Sam yelled at Extendo arms abruptly.

"Nightshade, we might as well bring the giant," Extendo said to one of the men who brought us in. Nightshade walked into the shadow of a tree and melted into the darkness.

He reappeared with a man in hand, he threw him to ground next to us. "Mr Wilstock, is that you?" Fisher looked up at him from the floor as Extendo grabbed him and tied him up to the same tree.

"Fisher! Thank God, you're alive." He replied to his bodyguard.

"Where is everyone else?" He asked.

"You'll find your allies are dead at the bottom of the lake," Nightshade spoke snidely. I suddenly began to laugh, my chest heaving in hysterics.

"What's so funny?" Nightshade brought his face up to mine.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." I used my shoulder to wipe my tears coming down my face from laughter. "It's just funny how confident you are."

"You saw the plane sink into the lake, right?" Nightshade said pointing out towards the water. "Even if they didn't die from the crash, the hypothermia definitely killed them."

"I'm just saying, you have a lot of confidence that you've won against people you don't know," I said nonchalantly. "I wouldn't be surprised if they were on their way to us now."

Extendo arms eye twitched, subtle but it was just what I wanted. I could already feel the unease begin to build within the two of them. "Even if they are alive, it's three of them against our whole camp. If I were you, I wouldn't like their odds."

"There you go again," I said with a cheery voice. "Underestimating us. Do you know who you really facing?"

"Some group of Amps calling themselves the protectors of the world for Amps and Idlites, when all you have done is attack Transgress and practically make things worse for both parties, calling yourselves The Foxhole. Lead by a woman who is stuck in the past where Amps were hidden and can't move forward." Extendo arms said.

"So, you do know about us?" I said surprised.

"Know thy enemy, isn't that the saying?" A familiar voice asked as a man walked in with Clay beside him. Unkempt brown hair that rolled down to the base of his shoulders and unforgiving eyes that hide anger that felt too familiar.

"You must be magnet boy." I said, "I mean I guess your thing magnets, that's how you ripped the plane open."

"It's Magnisos and you're right."

"How did you find out so much about and how did you get on the plane?" Sam asked the man.

"If you think one of your Foxhole friends is a traitor, you don't need to worry. They aren't. They didn't tell us anything... willingly at least." Magnisos smirked.

"There is such a small group of people that know that. I didn't even know until this morning." Fisher said from beside me.

"Vortex is everywhere." The man simply said.

"You're still so confident that whatever you have planned out is working, magnet boy. I mean we survived." I prodded.

"It's Magnisos." He said with more aggression. "Also, the confidence is well justified. You're hope though, that is what is misplaced. The reason your alive is because you are needed alive, I had to slow your side of the cabin to keep you alive. Your friends are dead. Even if they turn up alive, I have people around the coast that will finish the job. Face the music girl."

"Whatever magnet boy," I said with a smile.

A jagged piece of metal flew off one of the tents and raced over to the base of my neck. "Call me magnet boy one more time and I will slice open your throat faster than you can heal it." His face contorted with pure rage only to change back to tamed demeanour and the metal flew away from my neck.

"Touched a nerve there, didn't I."

"I heard about what happened to your brother, what a shame." Magnisos twisted the conversation. "He was shot right, by his friend. That must have been devastating for you. What I don't get is why you didn't save him." He asked me, coming closer to my face.

"Keep talking and I'll break your nose," I said to the man.

"You're supposed to be a healer. I mean if you can't even save your own brother you can't be that good." He moved his face away from mine, still mocking me. "Or maybe you didn't save him on purpose."

"Shut up." Anger bubbled within me, I could feel it seeping out of me. Extendo eyebrows furrowed and scowls grew on the faces around me.

"Maybe you knew he was just as bad as the people you were trying to stop and removing that killer was the best thing for everyone.

"I said shut up!" I shouted at him, his face showing a toothy grin the extended from cheek to cheek.

"Touched a nerve there, didn't I?" He acted as if my powers weren't affecting him, the anger I spewed was so toxic that even furthest people felt it as they broke into an argument.

"Untie me, bastard. I'll make you regret everything you just said." The words slithered from my lip.

"If you were your brother, maybe I'd be somewhat scared but your just an all talk mood ring who couldn't save her own family. Oliver must have really suffering in Hell, blaming you for being so useless.."

"Magnisos, maybe you should take a step back." Extendo arms commented placing a hand on Magnisos. Like a boomerang, the metal piece flew through Extendo arms neck like it was water and embedded itself in the tree just above my head, nicking the tips of my head. Blood splattered all over my face as his head fell off the base of his neck with a thunk, staining the silvery-white snow.

"No one touches me. Ever!" He shouted out, birds in the canopy above flew away at the echoing base of his voice. He brushed off the blood on his clothes and looked at me. "You know what, I'm tired of this. I was going to tell you that you had two choices, that you stay here in this camp and miss the gala or die but now I'm in a very murdery mood."