“We don’t know what exactly happened,” Prisca sounded annoyed, “but from what Angel has told us, it sounded like they couldn’t fly.” She shot a dirty look at Angel. “He also made it out like you two took on the whole damn armada.”
“Yeah,” Angel smiled brightly as he stared off into blank space, “We were pretty awesome.”
Alice put a gentle hand against Angel’s back. Her voice lacked any emotion, “You fainted after dragging Karrel’s corpse into the garage.”
Continuing to stare at nothing, Angel’s smile dropped slightly. Karrel once again protested to the group, “We should probably get moving. I don’t feel like dying so close to our exit.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Puck answered. “This isn’t the garage we came in from. We need to wait for our insider friend to change locations.”
Upon further inspection, Karrel realized that there were some differences from the garage he was currently in, and the one that they had all originally entered from. He had not noticed it at first. His condition continued to impair his vision apparently.
“How long’s that going to take?” The intense pain in Karrel’s chest was making him irritable. He didn’t want to think about how bad it would be without Puck’s medicine.
“You risk your life for friends and all they do is complain about how long it took!” a distant voice answered.
Once again silhouetted by the lack of light in the garage, a figure stood upon the catwalk that lined the roof of the area. The hanging button that opened and closed the garage rested in her hand.
“Good! Time to go.” Johnny gestured toward one of the armored trucks, and the group began to follow him into the vehicle.
One by one everyone piled in, Krystalyn and Angel helping carry Karrel’s near-lifeless body. Johnny was the last one to enter, but as he turned around, he realized that the figure carrying the garage-door controls had not budged.
“Let’s go!” Johnny shouted, “Time is not exactly on our side!”
“Yeah!” Puck piped in, “Or were you thinking of walking back?”
There was a long pause as the silhouetted figure stared back at the group in silence. No one moved an inch, and Karrel could see a sense of worry shoot across the others. They were afraid they were about to lose a friend, and their worries were about to be confirmed.
“I’m not coming with you,” the silhouetted voice answered.
Karrel felt his friends’ hearts freeze. Somehow, he knew that he was no longer the only person with chest pains in the room.
Puck was the first to break the heartbreaking silence. “C’mon, girl,” Puck winced, “It’s been a year since I’ve cooked your favorite meal. We need you back with–”
“Why stay?” Angel’s voice was steadfast.
The silhouetted figure shook her head back and forth. “I miss you guys, I really do,” her voice was sentimental. “But the UWP is more rotten than we had ever imagined. If I don’t stay… If I leave now… I won’t be able to live with myself.”
The atmosphere grew heavier by the second, and Karrel realized that his friends were coming to terms with leaving a friend behind. He had spent a short period of time getting to know this group, and it was impossible to imagine giving up a ticket back to them for anything. Johnny however, had deduced the reason.
“You got involved, didn’t you?” the yellow-eyed engineer inquired, his voice regaining its composure. “You made friends.”
The silhouetted figure nodded her head up and down.
“And without you…?” Johnny asked.
“Without me,” the silhouette replied, “they’re going to become just like the two girls they fought today.” He gestured at Angel and Karrel. “Unquestioning, and obedient. Some of them deserve it… but not all.”
Sighing, Johnny dropped his head to the ground. He let out a string of swears before pushing everyone into the armored truck. Angel and Puck tried to press back, but the girls held them back, pointing to the tears in Johnny’s eyes.
Johnny swung around, pointing to his silhouetted friend. “You stay alive! You hear me! You make it out of here alive!” he commanded. “And then… you come back to us. You’ll always have a home here. Now, open the damn door!”
With the click of a button, the gigantic garage doors began to open up, revealing the wasteland outside. Johnny climbed into the driver’s seat and pressed hard against the foot pedals. The armored vehicle roared to life and shot forward, exiting the UWP superdome and bouncing across the rough terrain ahead.
The melancholy mood had surrounded everyone, and now even Karrel felt the weight that was on everyone’s mind. Even though he did not know who that mysterious figure was, a sense of sadness had come over him. The silhouetted voice had sounded incredibly familiar the entire time. Karrel could not help but think that, at least at one point in his life, he had known whoever it was that had helped him and his friends today. Now, he would most likely never know.
•—•
The bumpy ride was unwelcoming to the hole that still resided in Karrel’s chest. Luckily, the bandages were holding tight, and it seemed like they were doing their job of stopping the bleeding. In the few minutes they had been driving, Karrel had regained some movement in his limbs, but it still was not enough for him to be able to sit up. Lucky for him, Krystalyn had volunteered her lap once more, and he found himself laying down in the center of the armored truck.
Johnny was still driving the vehicle when he glanced back to the group. “Pass up the fusion cores,” he requested, “I want to double-check that our mission was a success.”
Puck and Jessica both pulled out what looked like oversized batteries and began shuffling their way to Johnny. Karrel nudged Krystalyn’s thighs with his head, and then looked at his backpack. Understanding Karrel’s message, she riffled through his pack, finding the fusion core, and quickly tossing it over to Angel to give to Johnny.
“Excellent!” Johnny formed a greedy smile, “We even got one more than we needed.”
“I gave up flesh and blood for that thing,” Karrel coughed. “It better be worth it.”
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head,” Puck reassured Karrel, “Now that Johnny’s got his hands on these, we can take the much more difficult fight to the demons.”
Having regained a limited amount of mobility in his arms, Karrel waived them sarcastically. “Yay…!” he moaned.
At that moment, Jessica jumped out of her seat gesturing for everyone to be quiet. “Ssshh!” she hushed the group. “Does anyone else hear that?”
Karrel closed his eyes and opened his ears. There was a consistently loud thumping noise every few seconds, reassuring him that they were in fact inside of a moving vehicle. The loud winds of the wasteland also crashed against the armored vehicles hull, making any other noise almost indistinguishable. However, after a few seconds of dedicated meditation, Karrel could hear a slight humming noise. Even more, he could hear that it was slowly getting louder and louder. The rest of the group was hearing it as well, and Karrel watched as both Angel and Puck’s postures sunk.
“Johnny! We’ve got trouble!” Puck shouted to the driver’s seat.
Johnny swung his head around his shoulders. “How much?”
“The sky’s about to come down on us.”
Johnny swore underneath his breath. “I thought our escape seemed a little too easy.”
“What’s going on? Is something coming after us?” Karrel demanded an answer.
Angel turned to Karrel and uttered a single word that made him regret every having asked his question, “Splinters.”
Karrel rolled his eyes. They had been ridiculously unlucky from the start of this mission. The fact that the bad luck had remained for so long almost made their situation comical, and had they all not been about to die, there might be an air of humor in the truck.
The increasingly loud humming noise was coming from the Splinters that were rapidly approaching their position. Splinters were lar
ge, high-tech VTOLs developed by the UWP in an attempt to dominate the airspace of Earth. Unfortunately, the advanced, twin, vertical-facing propellers and all of the ordinance in the world could not combat the sheer number of umbrabats in the skies. Still, they were devastating pieces of equipment, capable of acting as their own separate units, without manned-operation, much like the x-bots that they carried into battle. They were rare to see in action, as the few that remained patrolled the airspace in between the superdomes. They were capable of reducing anything, even solid steel, to splinters, which consequently was where they got their names.
Karrel had only ever once seen a Splinter in action throughout his journeys in the wasteland. The fact that two were now hunting them down was an unbelievable end to what seemed to be a cursed mission.
“We need to act fast,” Angel began searching through the supply bin embedded in the armored vehicle. “Those things automatically target whatever presents the greatest threat.”
“Any ideas?” Prisca automatically began to mimic Angel’s actions.
“One,” Angel sighed. He shot a guilty look at Puck. “But he’s not going to like it. Find some titanium rope.”
“Rope!?” Puck shuddered. “You aren’t thinking about doing a–”
“Found some!” Prisca pulled out two long coils of what appeared to be chrome rope.
“Hahaha!” Puck roared with laughter. “Are you kidding me? This didn’t work the last time we tried it. What makes it different this time?”
“This time,” Angel smiled, masking his fear, “our lives are on the line.”
Puck lost himself in thought for a few moments before willingly blocking out his logical side. “Screw it! Hand me the rope.”
Karrel watched as Puck and Angel tied the titanium rope securely around their respective seats and then wrapped a small portion of the chrome twine around one of their hands. With Angel near the left sliding door, and Puck on the right, they readied themselves for what they were about to do. With a nod of their heads, they jumped into their respective doors, slamming both of their legs into the sliding surface. Angels legs glowed black with power, the air around Puck’s legs seemed to shift, and with a shattering thump they both broke the metal doors of the armored truck off of their hinges. Karrel watched in horror as Angel and Puck flew out of the vehicle.
“What are they doing!?” Karrel screamed. He sat up, pain electrifying his entire body, and took no notice of himself being able to move once more. Krystalyn screamed at him to lie back down as he peered out of the newly opened sides of the armored vehicle.
The titanium ropes were still attached to their respective seats but were now completely unwound. They flailed behind the truck for a few moments before becoming completely taut. Karrel dragged himself to one of the open sides of the truck, unready for what he was about to see.
Angel and Puck were still connected to the titanium rope that was wrapped around their hands. The doors that they had unhinged were now scraping across the ground, trapped underneath their feet. Using it as a reinforced surface to stand upon, both Angel and Puck were riding the armored doors as they slid across the broken ground, sending sparks flying in every direction, while the armored vehicle dragged them across the wasteland with the titanium rope.
As the two friends skated on their metal plates across the dirt mounds and broken asphalt, two metal figures flew in the sky chasing behind them. The Splinters were rapidly approaching, the humming from their propellers increasing in ferocity. In a few seconds, they would be within weapon’s range.
A barrel on the front of one of the Splinters began to rotate at an incredible rate, and the high-pitched scream of an internal motor filled the skies. The VTOL opened fire with its front-mounted, supercharged phalanx, sending a stream of high velocity ballistic rounds soaring down upon its target.
Johnny watched as a rain of hellfire scorched its way toward the vehicle he was driving. With a quick reaction, he threw the steering wheel, skidding the armored vehicle sideways as far away from the deadly onslaught as he could. Mere centimeters away from the driver’s side window, red-hot metal slugs peppered the dirt of the wasteland. Angel and Puck, who were still being pulled by the armored vehicle, were yanked violently but maintained their stability on their screeching metal platforms.
Johnny stuck his head out of the window and yelled back to his comrades, “What the hell are you waiting for!? Draw their attention before we’re turned into scrap!” There was no need for Johnny’s verbal abuse however, as once they regained their balance, Angel and Puck began their assault.
With black power emanating from his hands, Angel thrust his palms in the direction of his flying target. Black bolts of shadow shot forward to the Splinter that had just fired upon the armored truck. Six streaks of darkness pierced nothing but air as they whiffed by the flying contraptions, the VTOL only needing to move slightly to avoid the attack. Puck had lifted two large chunks of earth from the very ground itself, which were now following close behind him. He targeted the propellered flying machine that had yet to attack and catapulted the large rocks in its direction. One of the boulders easily missed its target, but the other was on the correct vector to intercept the Splinter. In a quick brush of movement, the Splinter increased its height slightly and rolled over the improvised missile, dodging out of harm’s way.
“I’d forgotten how maneuverable these sons of–” Angel’s hollers were interrupted as a stream of Gatling fire approached his position. He yanked on the titanium rope that was wrapped around his hand and pulled in the direction away from the fire. Like a beam of ballistic bullets, shots cut a line through the ground toward Angel as he attempted to maneuver himself out of the way. He was almost able to dodge the attack completely but due to his fatigue from his previous encounter, was a second too short. The metal slugs sliced off a large chunk of the metal door Angel was riding, reducing the area that he could stand on greatly, but missing his body completely.
Meanwhile, Puck was raising tower after tower of dirt and rock from the ground. The pillars were serving as shields from the oncoming hail of bullets, as one of the VTOLs had made it its goal to cut Puck in half with ballistic fire, and it had not stopped shooting for several seconds. Puck was intensely focused on saving his own life, and a counterattack would be impossible while his concentration was on shielding himself.
Luckily, Angel had noticed an opportunity arise. While the Splinter was concentrating its fire on Puck, Angel could hopefully catch it by surprise. Still pulling on his titanium rope and maneuvering himself out of the way of the bursts of bullets from his own opponent, Angel skidded himself slightly closer to the Splinter that was maintaining concentrated fire upon Puck. Whirling one of his shoulders around in a circle, a thin whirlwind of black smoke began to form around Angel’s arm. Compressing the black shadows as tightly as he could, a sharp, circular blade with a hollow center began to form alongside him. As soon as his creation was complete, Angel waved his hand forward, and the circular blade rocketed itself into the sky.
The black circle headed straight for its target, and the VTOL that was targeting Puck was too slow to recognize the threat. The black blade sliced its way into the hull of the Splinter, causing the flying machine to wobble in the air, unstable. Angel’s attack had not cut the aircraft in half, but it had come very close. Sparks rained down from its broken propeller and it struggled to remain airborne.
Wasting no time of his own, Puck lifted a chunk of earth from the ground, and with a flick of his wrist, the rock and dirt sculpted itself into a gigantic stalagmite. His projectile was ready for the finishing blow, and Puck threw his arm forward. After a short delay, the levitating spike soared toward the failing mechanical beast. The spike slammed into its target, piercing straight through the front of the aircraft, and causing it to erupt into a fiery explosion.
Metal shards and chunks of slag were blown outward from the resulting fireball in the sky. Puck and Angel actively dodged the debris as it rained down upon them, while
the rest of the group heard the sound of metal pinging off of the hull of the armored truck they were residing in.
“One down! One to go!” Puck laughed, brushing some of the heated metal that had landed on him off. His elation was short-lived, however. As he looked at Angel, expecting to see the happy face of his ally, he saw the frantic gestures of his friend.
Angel was desperately yelling at Puck, trying to get his attention, while pointing at the Splinter that was targeting him. It had stopped firing at Angel, but two side flaps had opened along the sides of its hull. Two cylindrical objects with red conic tips were now hanging out of the VTOL’s sides. Puck immediately recognized them as surface-to-ground missiles.
The two missiles detached themselves from the Splinter, falling a short distance before igniting and rocketing toward the ground near Angel and Puck. There were only seconds to spare. Angel jumped into action as quickly as he could. Keeping as balanced as possible, still skating on the metal door, Angel dropped to his knee. He slammed the hand that was not currently tied to the titanium rope onto the rapidly passing dirt ground, unleashing a plume of black smoke in his wake. The smoke quickly spread, and once he was satisfied with the quantity, Angel raised his hand into the air, above his head. A vast wall of solidified, dark clouds rose from the ground, blocking the airspace in between the missiles and Angel and Puck. Within a fraction of a second, an explosion occurred on the other side of the wall, and Angel watched as his dark creation crumbled into pieces and dissolved. However, the threat had not been stopped. The second missile came whizzing through the fiery explosion, and it was still on target to take both Angel and Puck out.
Luckily, Johnny had been watching the entire fight. Seeing the incoming second missile, he once again threw the steering wheel. The armored truck violently jerked to the side, skidding and almost rolling over from the force of the turn. Angel and Puck were immediately whipped a full ninety degrees around the armored vehicle. The missile was not fast enough to recalculate its targeting. It smashed into the ground erupting into a fireball of destruction and sending shattered boulders and charred asphalt everywhere. A small crater was the only thing left of where it hit.
Kin of Exile Page 26
