Storms Gather II

 

POV Airo

"What the hell were you doing!?" Relic demanded, as the truck

whizzed through the enemies, rolling them out into paste against the ground.

"We were busting a whole into the middle of the fortress, what more do you want?" Zak snapped back from the open window hatch. "You want us to leave?"

"Will you shut up?" Moon said from the driver's seat, as the twins cackled in unison from where they were harassing Avoma.

All three teams had converged at the West Wall, and they were now driving north, hugging the wall as they ploughed through enemies. Relic had suggested pushing forwards into the central keep of Nexus to take down the Ghoulfather, but Airo and Woodsy had concluded that they had insufficient manpower, so they had resorted to whittling down the enemy numbers.

"Is this really the most we can do?" Avoma grumbled, his hand closed around a struggling Deathly's neck.

"Might as well catch our breath," Airo breathed leaning back against the side of the truck and bandaging a cut on his shoulder. "Until more of us arrive."
"Approaching the factories," Scythe's voice came in over comms.

"Should we blow them to kingdom come?" Woodsy's voice followed, from where he was spearheading the charge, slashing apart anyone who got in the way of his bike as he controlled it using only his legs. "We have plenty of firepower stored in Bessie."
"Bessie?"

"It's the name of the truck."
"I didn’t name it," Zak said.

"I did though," El Casio said, raising a hand.

"Never name anything again," JJQ snorted.

"I like it?" Airo protested.

"You shut up."

 

The northern half of Nexus Fortress consisted of two halves - both factory zones for drug manufacture that gave the Ghoulfather his fortune. Their current goal was to light the whole place up and then bust down the North Gate. Bessie careered through the dirt paths of Nexus, gunfire and random weapons clanging off its metal casing as Moon guided it towards their target.

"Nice driving," Lee said, a little queasily due to the incessant shaking. "But don't blame me if I vomit in your lap, Relic."

"If you do, I'll bash your head in."

As if on cue, Lee retched and Relic's hand instantly went to the hammer resting against the seat next to him.

"We're approaching target, and fast," Moon called from the driver's seat, where JJQ was sat next to her operating the frontal guns turning anyone who got in their way to ash. Eventually, thugs stopped appearing around Bessie and they drove on in silence.

"Who would've thought they have brains?" Relic rolled his eyes. "Took them long enough to realise swords and knives don't work on military-grade armoured trucks," Vedix agreed.

"Wouldn't count on that," Woodsy replied. "Incoming!"

Moon grunted and slammed the wheel sideways as another truck narrowly missed their side, and screeched around, coming up alongside them.

"Shit!" Orion and Lee cursed in unison.

"Oh noooo," Moon rolled her eyes sarcastically as she pulled the truck around to dodge the next charge. "Who would've thought that the top crime faction in the Poor West would have military-grade trucks just like the weaker faction we got them from?"

"Didn't think of that," Zak muttered.

"Thought as much."

 

Six trucks had been dispatched to encircle them in the narrow, cluttered factory alleys barely wide enough for the truck to fit through, metal scraps being teared off walls on either side as Bessie scraped through. It was difficult to accurately grasp the six enemies' positions in the tight, twisting streets with old walkways hanging overhead, which Scythe was weaving through overhead. Sure enough, as soon as she pulled around a blind turn a truck rammed into Bessie's side, and Moon wrestled with the controls to bring it back under control. Unfortunately, they'd been now boxed in by five enemy trucks, Scythe was still circling overhead, and Woodsy was right next to them, revving his bike's chrona batteries.

They'd formed a U-shape around them, but Moon didn’t waste any time. She slammed on the brake, yanked the wheel, and did a full 180 on the spot. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Woodsy nod to her and his bike shot off, slicing right between two enemy trucks and escaping the encirclement.

"See you in a second," he said over comms.

Zak had slammed the open windows shut and exhaled.

"All of you had better hold on tight!" Zak yelled to everyone inside the truck. "She drives like the devil!"

"Don't just leave it all up to me!" she yelled from the front seat as she quickly cracked her fingers. "I won't be able to shatter all those windshields by myself!"

Then she rammed Bessie right into the head of the truck that was trying to cut in front of them, shattering its windshield instantly, exposing the three thugs inside. Before they could even react, Scythe nosedived the truck, spraying the inside of the cockpit with machine pistol fire and just as he pulled up to avoid collision, tossed an incendiary bomb inside. The whole front of the truck went up in flames.

"One down," Moon grinned.

 

Three of the remaining trucks roared after them, and the two others went after Woodsy, who was skidding around corners dodging gunfire from guards on foot and slashing them to bits with his hook swords. Scythe followed after Bessie, but one of the trucks with a mounted turret swivelled around and a streak of blue bullets almost turned him to dust, and he was forced to climb higher.

"Someone with a lot of firepower's gunna have to take that out," he muttered.

"Firepower?" Tentee perked up from where he was just finishing up loading his rocket launcher and sort through his bombs. "Leave that part to me. Just tell me where to shoot."

"The truck in the middle has an armoured turret," came the reply.

"Gotcha, former boss. Moon, give me an angle!"

Up on the hoverboard, Scythe frowned a little at Tentee's reference to his former position as G3's leader, but said nothing about it. Moon, meanwhile, had just flicked her eyes to the screen that displayed the rear camera, and noticed the closest truck was preparing for a pit manoeuvre now that the street had become more open.

"Sorry Tentee," she said. "Unless you have impeccable timing that's going to be impossible."

She braked and then turned away from the enemy truck at the split second it came in for a pit manoeuvre, then drifted it around in yet another 180, coming up parallel face to face with the third enemy truck which had been bringing up the rear but was now alongside the turret truck. Instantly, the two trucks collided at ridiculous speeds, and everyone in Bessie was lurched forwards. Both windshields turn to powder instantly, but before the thugs in the truck opposing them could even react, Airo and Deadfire shot all three of them dead. Behind the now dead enemy pilots, the fifteen or so enemy thugs lifted their firearms and bullets hurtled into Bessie. JJQ reached across from the front passanger's seat and pushed Moon under the dashboard as they thudded into the leather seats.

"Ten-tee!!" Moon gasped, one hand on the wheel under the seat as a bullet grazed her shoulder, and two more hit JJQ in the forearm, but she gritted her teeth and kept Moon pushed down in safety.

"No clear shot," Tentee replied, from his spot behind the driver's seat, avoiding the bullets. "If I shoot we'll all go up in flames."

At that exact second, a small bomb clattered into Bessie and landed at their feet. Avoma dived across the ground and hurled it right back into the enemy truck, where a small explosion went off in the faces of three thugs. For a brief moment the gunfire died down, and instantly JJQ leaped through the shattered windshields into the enemy craft, her twin shortswords whirling. Zak followed, and the El Casio, clearing it out in all of three seconds.

 

The first truck that had tried the pit now slammed into Bessie's side, threatening to tip them over onto the side. Thinking quick, Relic wrenched open the window and brought his hammer down on the enemy windshield right outside, exploding it in a shower of reinforced glass and turning one thug's face into paste. Akove followed suit and reached across the window into the open cockpit, grabbing the two pilots by the scruffs of their necks and yanking them right out of their vehicle into their own. The two disoriented thug's heads cleared a little and then they looked up at the twelve grinning elite forces.

"We're fucked aren't we," one of the thugs said.

"Listen," the other said. "After this, I'll turn over a new leaf and never make drugs again."

"Would you take drugs though?" Airo demanded.

"Well, yeah."

"Thought so. Jump him."

Sorry to say, but they got jumped.

 

Zak was at the wheel of the truck they'd rammed head on into, and he rolled it out of the way, then sped off down the opposite way they came from. The third and last truck's turret swivelled around an aimed right into Bessie's shattered windshield, but another strafe run from Scythe and two smoke flare from the back of his hoverboard threw it off track.

"Tentee, whatever you wanna do, better do it now."

"Just drive," he replied, hefting his RPG to his shoulder.

Moon didn’t question it and stepped on it, the truck roaring to life. Just as it gained acceleration, Tentee smashed a fist on the sunroof release button and the top of Bessie slid open. In a split second, as Bessie roared past the turret truck, he poked his upper body out of the open sunroof and yelled,

"PINEAPPLE!!"

Then he blasted the turret point-blank with an RPG and the explosion almost turned his top half to dust if Airo hadn't caught on and yanked him back into Bessie. The shockwave collided with the side of the truck and everyone reeled of the adjacent wall as the whole truck shook back and forth. Then the next second it was gone and Bessie left behind the smoking third truck. There was a moment of silence. Then-

"WHAT THE FUCK!?!?" Lee bellowed, grabbing Tentee by the collar.

"It worked!" Tentee protested, a stupid smile over his blackened face.

"WORKED MY…" Lee's voice trailed off as he struggled to rebuke.

"You nearly killed us," Relic breathed, one hand on his chest.

"That was the point," Tentee muttered jokingly under his breath.

Unfortunately, Avoma heard him. Ten very strong fingers closed around his head.

"Ah," he said. "I'm fucked."

 

"Thanks for that," Scythe said curtly over comms before closing them and diving after the truck that Tentee had just smoked.

His hoverboard whirred as he sliced through the air aiming straight for its windshield, and two tiny missiles dislodged themselves from hatches at the front. The nose of the truck went up in flames as Scythe hopped off the board, leaving it hover midair above the wreck, and he slipped through the shattered windshield into the belly of the beast. A few seconds later, he re-emerged from the smoke, covered in blood.

 

Looking back through the open rear window

 

POV Woodsy

"So damn persistent."

That just about summed up the two trucks on his tail as he weaved through narrow winding pathways cluttered with empty waste barrels and metal crates. They didn’t have much skill - they weren't soldiers after all - but they still drove like beasts, crashing through buildings and walls alike without much thought, hell-bent on chasing him down, their frontal guns blazing the whole time. Well, nothing much he, a four time champion in bike racing before the Facility, couldn't handle.

 

Sheathing his blades on his back again, he gripped the handles of the sleek blue and silver bike, the late Silvertongue's personal ride, and stepped on the acceleration, heading straight towards a flat steel wall. Instead of chasing, one truck parked itself horizontally at other end of the street, cutting him off, while the other one roared directly at him. Woodsy raced full speed straight into the wall, pulled up at the last moment, screeching vertically up the steel surface, and then the next moment he was airborne, flipping over once, twice, and as he came upright his back wheel crushed into the windscreen of the pursuing truck, The rotational force shattered it instantly and next second the pilots found themselves with a pistol between their eyes, and their brains were blown out. It was followed with a quick cluster bomb that went off with a muffled boom inside the truck, but Woodsy was already gone, leaving behind a burning metal skeleton. He faced the second truck head on, the two of them racing right towards each other at breakneck speed, neither backing down.

"Bold," Woodsy muttered. "But not very smart."

A second before collision, he wrenched his front wheel upwards and rode up the slanted windshield of the truck. The pilot slammed on the brakes but it was too late. Woodsy's spinning back wheel turn the glass to dust and instantly a cluster bomb rolled in right after.

Woodsy rode over the top of the truck and dropped down on the other side, pausing to listen to the series of echoing booms that went off in the belly of the truck.