Time passed, and it was quiet throughout the night. Cora took small breaks of walking between her full-out sprint down the cracked pavement of an old highway. Broken cars with rusted parts and busted in doors lay abandoned, creating a sense of loneliness, a longing for the past. She was no GPS, but she walked this path enough to know how close Riverdale was. In the distance she could see it blending in with the other heaps of trash. The modest military camp that was a set-up for Vygorns to try and find the remnants of Kyra. 

Their rows of tents and trucks were ringed by a chain-link fence, but actual activity inside the camp seemed quiet, from her distant view. Cora snuck close enough that she was only a 50m sprint from the side gate, her hiding spot an assortment of ancient refrigerators and cables with the copper picked clean. Her legs begged for rest; it felt as though she ran for hours, and that was likely close to the truth. The gurgle in her tummy was all she needed to convince herself it was time for a break. Filled with hunger and fatigue, Cora rested herself against a rusted steel door. 

[i]A moment's release won't kill me. [/i]She thought as her hands pulled out whatever food she thought to stash away in her pockets. It wasn't much, but it would satisfy her. The flavor of the cheese stung her tongue as she chewed; she wasn't used to food being so delicious. But just as much as she enjoyed her meal, heavy thoughts rose in her mind. Coming here was a stupid idea, she finally admitted. Did she really think she could take the Vygorns on by herself? Did she really have that much faith in her new, barely used ability? 

Cora was aware of her skills in martial arts, stealth and weapons, but these weren't the normal bandits. They were aliens. Really, she couldn't wrap her head around that fact. She envisioned extra-terrestrials with black eyes and green skin, not evil overlords that looked the same as she. That fact scared her more than anything else, fighting an unknown intelligence that could shape its very appearance and knew combat on an interstellar level. 

But she was here, and the game required her to play. Her pride wouldn't let her back out now. Cora stood, sucked in a shaky breath, and pulled her large hood down over her head. The mask scarf hanging around her neck felt much better when the fabric was up snug along the bridge of her nose, granting anonymity. 

[b]"God help me." [/b]She whispered, raising a hand to the dark sky. The smoggy clouds above swirled and bloated, becoming blurred behind a curtain of falling snow. It fell in soft, fat flakes -- the ideal kind of snow. Under the new cover, Cora made a break for the fence, making the metal cold enough to simply shatter apart in her hands. She ducked behind one of the first tents, looked around, moved closer to the center of the base. She could see a few figures coming out of the woodwork, gazing up at the snowy night view. They were dressed in black, far finer than those of worker clothes, and similar to the ones back at Nature's Haven. [i]Vygorns, it has to be. They're not even reacting to the fact that it's snowing in summer.[/i]

Cora tiptoed to closer cover, leaning to peek around a truck tire as a group of silhouettes only metres away split apart from the center of camp, each headed in a different direction. They were looking for the Elemental responsible for this, quietly and efficiently. She retreated slightly, catching one all by himself. From the shadows she affected the air around him, making it below freezing in seconds. Increasing the chill, an ice choker snaked its way around the Vygorn's neck, and all he managed was a muffled grunt before it choked the alien out. He fell, the snow quickly collecting on his frozen body. One down, how many more to go? 

Movement on her left. She dove under one of the trucks as footsteps too close for comfort stalked by on the other side of the vehicle, unaware of the dead Vygorn. With his back turned, Cora pulled herself halfway out from her hiding place, creating a thick nail of ice in her hand. Holding her breath, she held the nail by her ear, lining up her sights. The icy nail silently buried itself in the back of the unaware Vygorn's head, and he toppled over, still as his friend. 

She shoulder checked just in time; two more shady Vygorns at 3 o'clock. They ghosted across the thin layer of snow, small blades raised. Not a word fell from their lips, which was all the alarm she needed. Clambering out from under the truck, Cora closed the gap between them, flipping out her collapsible baton at the last instant. She swept the first Vygorn's feet out from underneath him, slashing him again in the gut as he fell. With a side step she aimed the baton for the second Vygorn's head, but he blocked it with a pale hand. It was more of a touch than a block, however, as in the moment he connected with the baton, the air around his hand distorted. Her baton snapped in two, though the correct term would be the middle was [i]deleted[/i]. 

She barely absorbed that fact before a punch to the face sent her reeling back. Finding her sense of balance, Cora used her falling momentum to handspring back on her feet, feeling drops of blood fall from her nose. 

She'd never seen someone move so fast with so much force. It scared her almost as much as the challenge thrilled her. Close combat would quickly be lethal to her against these aliens. The only way to win against them would be to overpower them (beyond her, at the moment), or catch them off guard with long-range surprise attacks. She hadn't seen them use speed yet, but judging from how fast their limbs simply [i]moved[/i] it was something to be wary of. The new blades pressed against her back begged to be used, but she wasn't comfortable with that fighting style yet. 

The one Vygorn she knocked down simply got back up, showing little if her attack did any real damage. Cursing under her breath, Cora leapt back, putting some distance between her and the aliens. The snow quaked as urchin-shaped ice spikes exploded from under the Vygorn's feet, building off each new sharp bulge of ice in a chain-reaction that left a small mountain of spikes amidst the rows of tents. The aliens navigated the ice smoothly, leaping onto each spike branch as it was made, dodging so fast they ended up being on top of the mountain instead of being shredded up inside. 

A third and fourth Vygorn joined the battle, standing by their brethren atop the ice mountain. Cora could feel their eyes coldly observe her, as a human would an ant, wondering if squishing her was worth it. And strangely, she felt just as small as they perceived her.  

Only one smiled, a Vygorn with a red streak in his short black hair -- the one who punched her in the face earlier. If a wolf could smile, the alien imitated it perfectly, baring his teeth more aggressively than friendly. His eyes were coals, black and jagged. The mix was something out of a nightmare, and Cora froze up. 

That was the slip-up they needed. Instantly, the Vygorns surrounded her, blades raised. Cora growled, refusing to go down so easily. Ice dragons burst from the snowy ground, snapping their huge jaws at her assailers. It was a vicious battle of teeth and metal, combat moving at a blur to the human eye. Cora managed to pin one Vygorn by his head, and a second ice dragon ripped its throat out. But just as she thought she might have a chance, a Vygorn picked her up by the shirt and sent her rocketing through the air. 

She had enough time sailing across the field to see where it was she had been flung. Her ice mountain was alarmingly close, it and a million needles of ice. Not that death had occurred to her as being created from her own powers, or that her own death would involve being impaled on ice spikes. But as her fate was unavoidable, Cora squeezed her eyes closed and waited. 

The impact drove the air from her lungs and cracked her skull, knocking her half- unconscious. But in the agonizing moments after, she noticed her body fall and roll away from the mountain as opposed to sticking there, impaled. She couldn't feel any ice piercing her body, just overwhelming pain where the impact was. [i]Strange, the mountain should be just riddled with spikes. And I with holes.[/i]

Cora remembered where her eyes were, peeling them open to a clear night sky; the snow stopped falling. She was lying on her back, aware of the low voices around her. Within arm's reach was the small ice mountain she was suppose to be impaled on, but on closer observation she could see the section she impacted was a concave wall of ice, no spikes whatsoever. [i]Almost like someone deleted a chunk outta it.[/i]

A head stooped down into her weak vision, the red-streaked Vygorn with the evil smile. His finger pulled down the mask around Cora's face, exposing her skin to the stinging cold. Using the exact same wolfish face on her, he stared her down, flooding her veins with terror. His eyes gleamed malevolently, seeing the reaction he wanted.

[b]"Take her to one of the cells. She'll bring us company soon enough, might know where our scouts are too..." [/b]He said, stepping back. There was more, but Cora found it increasingly hard to focus.

Hands with iron grip pulled her wrists together, snapping metal cuffs way too tightly on them. She vaguely felt herself being pulled up just above the elbows, her feet dragging helplessly behind her. Blood dripped from her injuries, colouring the snow as she was effortlessly dragged away. Cora struggled to see where exactly they were taking her, but her best attempt to stay conscious failed, and her vision faded to black.