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They would have ridden to the final battle in comfort and style, easily, theoretically.  Isabella with his top-of-the-line Justice Rider™ brand combat jet, or even any of SHINING's jetliners, available instantly should someone say the phrase 'final battle' to one of the studio suits.  Less easy was convincing Jonas to spend a few hours in an enclosed metal tube with the Justice Rider camera team; an array of drones and cameras who would be recording everything, at all times.  Yes, everything, yes, at all times, and no, it was not negotiable, Jill informed them.

The replacement plane creaked and groaned, and rattled like fingerbones in a tin can.  Askin thought of asking where Jonas had gotten it on such short notice, and also will this explode in midair with us inside? before deciding he was happier without that knowledge.

Askin checked his phone, his texts, mentally adding up everyone in the plane with him, everyone with Jill, everyone they'd met chasing down the mad machine Oh-One.  Ahead, he could see the little black dots of the MAVERICK planes.  Friends, allies, and strangers, all converging on the tower.  It would come into sight any second.

[color=FBDE41]"Scenic, isn't it?[/color] Askin said, gazing out the window.  Strokes of antarctic cloud rushed by; dark, eager waves, untouched canvases of snow and mist, the occasional breakage of coastal rock.  [color=FBDE41]"For someone without a heart, the big guy did pick an awfully lovely battleground."[/color]

They had just passed onto the Antarctic continent.  The tower had come into view like a needle through skin.  And it was about then that a thick red line, mind-numbing in its size, its length, was drawn through the sky in a vague diagonal.  

Planes whined and screamed where the stroke of the laser passed through them, and they broke like toys.  Lobs of metal spun from the sky trailing smoke and fire.  Without a chance to react, bodies were yanked through holes in depressurized cabins.  

Askin tried to call to someone, anyone, Otsana, Brown, Jonas, Isko, Aline, anyone, but the wind yanked his voice from his lungs.  

It was impossible to tell who was who as they fell from the sky, spinning black blurs on the Antarctic gray.  [color=FBDE41][i]If I could get to them in time, if I unload my bottles and store all of us..[/i].[/color] Askin thought, before correcting himself.  They all had parachutes, and preparations, and they were all perfectly capable of something so small as falling from the sky. 

So he waited until the ground was nearly up close, ready to meet him.  And he disappeared into a little brass bottle.  It landed in a mound of snow with a little [i]plff[/i], just within sight of where Brown stood by the cliff and the sea.

He counted, then, when he thought it was safe, Askin emerged from the bottle, popping out of the snow like a whack-a-mole.  

[color=FBDE41]"Ah! Brown!"[/color] He extracted himself from the waist-high snow, shaking cold slurry from his sunshine-yellow overcoat, waving brightly in the direction of the familiar face just a few hundred feet away.  [color=FBDE41]"You alive?"[/color]