* In part a reaction to the Public Service Announcement.

An old brick red truck rolled down an empty path, dirt roads connecting campsites and open fields. The truck ran at a crawling pace, as the driver was too distracted fiddling with the radio to really focus on driving. Swarthy hands, lightly tanned but stained with oil marks, kept tuning the dial; carefully to the left, a bit back to the right. At first there was nothing but static sounds. “Come on, I know we’re in signal range… Work damn it!” the drive yelled to the machine. A fist hit the dashboard in frustration, followed by an exasperated sigh.

One more time. The knob twisted, carefully trying to line up to the correct FM station. The static noises were broken up by the faint sounds of voices. “Gotcha!” Another slight turn and they were as clear as the beat up speakers were going to get. The radio coverage was of the Destiny City Public Service Announcement, where the mayor was speaking to the public. Hungry for the information, and curious to just how much worse could things get, Samson Colt slowed the vehicle to a halt as he listened.

And there it was. The bomb dropped. Permits would be required to leave the city. Not that Samson was remotely within city limits, but certainly had its effect on his plans. Getting in unnoticed was difficult enough as it was, but it seemed like getting back out again would be damned impossible. “******** went his personal plans. No more “quick trips” under civilian disguises, if coming back out was going to cause problems. When Samson heard enough it turned the dial back to the familiar static. His hand reached to the next seat, grabbing a dilapidated notebook. He ripped out a handful of pages. The text on them almost seemed like gibberish. Random scrawlings of times and places. Places he knew she liked, and times he thought he saw that familiar shimmer of strawberry blonde. The young man didn’t know he’d never recognize her even if he saw her, whoever she was now. But he couldn’t give up the hope that maybe there was a young lithe blonde woman, that he swore smelt of strawberries and cream, who’d be the one. He thought he saw a glimpse of her dark form, corrupted Hypnos… but she vanished all too quick before he could confirm it. But that gave Sam hope. Hope that at least if she was alive, he’d get her back. It would have been cleaner, he could have just found her on civilian terms. Easier to charm maybe, even if that meant he’d have to talk more than five words to every blonde woman he saw that could fit the bill. But it was all worthless to try if it was going to be that much harder to get back to those places, at those times, just to get a glimpse of his blonde candidates. Not if it meant he’d be giving up on his senshi duties.

It was better to stick to the shadows. Hypnos, her powered form… that was the key to getting Ainsley back. No matter how he’d have to get the information, someone on that side had to know her. As Ixion, he’d do whatever he’d need to steal her back.

The papers crumbled in his hand, and were tossed back. It had only been a couple weeks, but that was still a couple weeks worth of time he felt wasted, useless information without the means to properly follow up. “God ******** damn it.”

Reclining into the seat, Sam tilted his head back and shut his eyes for moment. His hand slowly felt around his pocket; fiddling with a piece of wire, wrapped like a ring. It was barely big enough to slip past one knuckle on his fingers. But it was made for more delicate hands; a little copper piece of wire, bent and wrapped around a small yellowish stone. As Sam played with the ring, he thought he heard her voice next to him. Slowly turning to the side, he wasn’t surprised to see nothing there; Sam thought he heard her voice nearly all the time. Pulling out the ring, he sighed heavily. Ainsley always liked the things he made for her. “Somehow I’ll give it you. Somehow.”

It was just going to be a lot harder than he originally planned for.