Trapped...

Cassidy sighed. "I guess all we can do now is relax and try to keep warm." She slowly sat down on the hard, cold metal floor, leaning her head back and closing her eyes, taking in steady slow breaths.

Rev paced for a while, back and forth in front of the young coyote. But now he had stopped talking to himself. He was unusually quiet, he was thinking. His train of thought came to a sudden halt when he noticed that Cassidy was shivering. If it caught Rev's eye when he was freaking out, her shaking must have been bad. He stared at her for a moment. 'Should I go over and help her keep warm? Would Tech not like it? What if he doesn't? I don't want him to feel like I'm trying to take her away from him! No! I don't want that! I just....' Rev sighed. The rational part of his brain began taking over. He knew Tech wouldn't mind too much, considering the circumstances. After all, he only wanted to keep her safe, right?

Having finally made up his mind, Rev walked over to Cassidy and sat down beside her. Cassidy opened one eye and smiled at him. Rev smiled back. "Are you cold?" He asked, watching her shiver again.

Cassidy hesitated before replying. "Yeah, it's kinda chilly in here..."

Rev put his arm around her shoulders. Cassidy smiled at him again, silent. Rev chuckled. "What? Just trying to help you get warm."

"Thanks Rev." The she coyote leaned her head against his shoulder.

There was along silence. Rev was staring at the wall, at the boxes all around them. They had solved the case of the back robberies, aside from one fact, who exactly pulled this off? "I guess we're gonna find out who robbed those banks, right Cassidy?"

But there was no reply from his female partner. She was asleep. At first, Rev was slightly alarmed. He hoped she was only tired, knowing the dangers of her body temperature getting too low. 'Backwards from Ic-...' Rev stopped in mid-thought. He didn't want to go there. Not right then, not today.

But it was too late. He was already thinking about her. Her laugh. Her cheeky smile. Her ice-blue eyes. Rev sighed and pulled out of his pocket a photograph and a necklace. The photo was of himself, in full roller-blading gear, Tech, and a young white female fox. She was making a 'hang loose' sign at the camera, while Tech was trying to hide his face, and Rev was waving a hot dog around, smiling widely.

Rev felt a weird burning sensation in the back of his throat. He quickly put the photo back in his pocket. In his other hand was the necklace. A simple blue orb on a silver chain. He smiled to himself and squeezed the orb twice. There was some whirring sounds, and then the orb turned into a little blue fox's face. "Kiki!"

Rev smiled at it.

"Rev?" Cassidy had heard the unusual noise from the necklace and had woken up. She looked at the necklace curiously. "What's that?"

Rev bit his bottom lip nervously. "Uhh... it's... a necklace." When he had said that, the little robotic fox turned back into a blue orb.

"A necklace?.... I never thought of you as the jewelery-wearing type, Rev." Cassidy giggled and poked his arm.

"Haha, well it's not really mine anyway, you see it's actually I-...a freind of mine's."

"Really? Who's?" Cassidy asked, her eyes sparkling in curiousity.

Rev didn't answer right away. His mind had floated back, remembering the day that he had tried so hard to get over, but even to this day, almost two years later, it still brought tears to his eyes....

Looking around Tech's eyes fell upon the bikes. He let go of Rev and lifted the three of them off the ground with his magnetism. With all his might he tossed the scraps of metal at the tornado. The fire seemed to screech and break apart. There was a blood curdling scream from the base and then with the blink of an eye the tornado broke and disappeared from existence.                

Rev levitated off the ground, his ankle throbbing with pain as he did so but he ignored it. The desert around him was nothing but fire and ice. Scorched ground and frozen sand. But there was no trace of Icy. Tech ran over out of breath. He looked around.                 

The two looked at each other with dismay. Rev tapped into his GPS. There was no trace of any life anywhere. The roadrunner shook his head as he tried to hold back tears and flew into the sky, looking around. The only thing besides desert was the far off skyscrapers of the city. He cupped his hands over his mouth. "Icy!"     

While his partner called several times from over head, Tech only stared at the ground. Something had caught his eye. Leaning down he picked up the silver chain necklace with the round blue jewel at the end of it. Tech then did something he promised himself he would never do. Something his grandfather tried to teach him but he had never felt comfortable doing it…until now. Now that he had a reason for it.               

The coyote clutched the jewel, threw back his tears, threw back his head, and howled to the full moon with deep sorrow in his heart…

"Rev?" Cassidy's voice brought him back to the present. Her brown eyes studied him, filled with worry. "Are you okay?"

Rev brushed his face with his hand quick enough so that Cassidy could barely see it. "Oh yeah, I'm fine!" He gave the coyote a wide smile.

"Rev I-" Before she could finish her sentence, the both of them were flung forward as the container came to a sudden halt. When they heard the large doors opening, Rev grabbed Cassidy's arm and pulled her behind one of the large shipping crates. The two stayed there, hiding, hoping whoever was coming in wouldn't see them. If so, they only had Cassidy's now weak powers and Rev's speed to save them.

"Now, now. What do we have here?"

A tall, dark figure loomed over them. All they could see were his eyes, glaring down at them, and his evil, wicked smile. He bent over and reached out to grab Rev, who bolted just out of his grasp. "Hold still!" The man ordered, drawing out a small item from his pocket.

Cassidy saw a sliver of light bounce off of the object's metalic surface and growled warningly. He wasn't going to hurt Rev. Not on her watch.

He spun around to face the she-coyote. "Oh, you scare me." He mocked her growl.

"I can easily turn that into the truth." She retorted before lunging at him, knocking him to the ground. But, her feather-light weight was not enough to keep him down, and he easily flipped her off, sending her flying into a nearby wall. She slid to the floor, moaning in pain from the impact.

The man stood up and marched towards her. Now Rev could see that the object in his hand was indeed a knife. Its ragged, deep grooves were quite intimidating. "Oh no you don't!" Rev raced forward, grabbing the man's hand tightly and pulling. "Don't you dare touch her!"

"Silence, bird!" The man snarled, easily picking the scrawny roadrunner up off of the ground and tossing him aside like a peice of rubbish. With that finished, he knelt beside Cassidy, who was still dizzy from her head impacting with the metal walls, and drew his knife along her right arm, grinning. "Now. Listen close and listen good. If you dare to disobey me when we arrive, this is what will happen.... Only to him." He gestured to Rev.

Cassidy winced and whimpered as the knife dug into her flesh briefly, leaving a long slash mark from her shoulder to the inside of her elbow.

With a satisfied smirk covering his ugly face, he stood and faced Rev. "Same goes for you, birdie. You defy me and I will hurt your friend."

Now having been given a wake-up call by the knife, Cassidy snarled. "What do you want with us?"

The man paused in walking to the door of the container. "That is not for you to question. You belong to me now."

Cassidy and Rev shared a worried look from across the container. What did he mean by that?