This is going to get boring. Zola shredded the last of her pursuers, abandoned her Khanjali, called her mechanic, and requested her Stromberg once she was far enough away. She kept her Hellbringer ready in case any of them respawned nearby, took cover behind a pile of rocks, and kept spinning her POV around to avoid being caught by surprise.

The bastard who’d called her the N-word rushed toward her on the map and a grenade arched over the rocks. She scrambled out of the blast radius a split-second before the grenade blew, then drilled him with her plasma rifle until he flumped over dead. The Stromberg’s blip appeared on the map and she bolted to it and jumped in.

“Just in time. I can hear a helicopter behind me.” She sped off, armed her missiles, and headed north toward Sandy Shores. The missile-lock alarm alerted her to the next attack and she whipped around before a rocket slammed into her Stromberg. Since the car could tank a half-dozen direct hits, it wasn’t time to panic yet.

A Buzzard and a Deluxo approached her head-on. She locked on to the Buzzard and launched a missile. The chopper tried to dodge but its pilot wasn’t fast enough. The missile ripped the Buzzard open and a secondary explosion finished the job. The flaming wreckage plunged to the ground and the player let out a stream of profanity.

Her aim shifted to the Deluxo and she recognized its driver’s gamertag.

The squeaker again. She clicked her mouse button and the Deluxo fired a missile a split-second later. The blast spun her to the right and she caught a glimpse of the Deluxo popping before it slid off her screen. She turned back around and resumed her course toward Sandy Shores. The squeaker and his cohorts finally caught up with her by the time she reached the Alamo Sea.

She fired off an evil cackle and drove straight into the lake, shifting the Stromberg into submarine mode as it plunged into the water. She floated for a moment, giggling, as they cursed at her and yelled at each other while firing blindly into the lake.

“You can’t hide down there forever, you bitch!”

“Typical girl. You can’t take the heat, so you run away and hide!”

“He says after I kicked his ass all over the desert.” Zola rolled her eyes and rotated the Stromberg until its torpedoes locked on to one of them.

“Send me nudes,” one of them demanded again, then made a slurping sound.

“Send money first!” She launched a torpedo and something above the water exploded. The squeaker let out an enraged shriek that could’ve shattered glass.

A “bad sport” notification popped up and she shook her head. It’s acceptable for players to kill each other repeatedly, but if you destroy another player’s vehicle, that’s somehow wrong. Makes perfect sense.

She headed for the shore, switched back into car mode, and steered toward the nearest of her enemies. He turned to fire at her and she smashed into him and pinned him between her grille and his APC. She backed up and rammed him again and his body flopped over like its strings had been cut.

The player let out another enraged scream.

Two of his buddies demanded nudes again. Zola grumbled under her breath.

“You do realize that behaving like this is not going to get you laid, right?”

“The pictures on your site are all fake. You’re really an old man using a voice changer. Don’t send any nudes. They’d make me puke.”

Are you kidding me? She drew in a breath -- but then one of them fired a rocket into her Stromberg. Her car survived, but two nearby vehicles exploded and sent three flaming bodies into the lake. Zola burst out laughing and headed for the Derelict Motel.

“See? That’s what you get for being a bully.”