Almost Running but not Quite

[Glyph]

Banner swore when he sped out into the street only to find that the swarm of robots, while apparently surprised by their appearance, had indeed spotted them and taken up pursuit.

"Enmita damn the moron behind these things!" The fox snarled, whirling in mid-stride to put a few rounds into the mechanical menace's ranks. Explosions rippled through the group, catching others in the crossfire, but still more were coming, and coming fast.

Banner cursed again, something very colorful he'd picked up on a job overseas, then looked where the hedgehog was pointing. Immediately he changed course, sprinting tangent to the roaring mass of robots toward the car. "Only one way to find out!"

The doors were open, but that wouldn't do them any good if the keys weren't inside. Banner could hotwire a car if he had to, but that would be cutting it close.

For once, his worries were put to rest; not only were the keys in the ignition, but the thing was actually still idling! It didn't matter how long it'd been left alone--hovercars nowadays worked with the same principles as gear did, on air and solar energy batteries. What concerned him would be getting out of range before the horde started firing on them.

That could be a problem.

"Get in!" He yelled, and dove for the driver's side.

The side facing the glowing barrels of dozens of laser cannons.

[Kiwi]

Tara felt terror strike through her system as she saw the sight of the laser cannons being charged. She had glanced over her shoulder, and now she regretted it, her eyes continued to widen. She tripped over a broken piece of side walk from her lack of attention, and collapsed to the ground. He ran into the vechicle, and could hear him yell for her to get inside. Tara twisted around with her laser pistol towards their pursuiters, and could see that the robots attention was now on her comrade. Crap. They would fire any second, those lasers looked almost completely charged. She wouldn't make it. Neither would he.

Bracing herself, she pointed her gun towards the sky with one hand and shot out several shots from her gun, flinching from the recoil, but was happy to see that their attention flickered to her. Now or never. She stood to her feet sharply, and took a deep breath. She hoped that his would work.

“HEY LOOK AT ME I’M A TARGET!” She yelled out as loud as possible, almost screaming. The next moment, they aimed at her and fired. Tara took off, running straight towards the hover car, hopefully avoiding their fire, her feet hammering against the asphalt.

The next moment, she yelled out a swear. A laser ripped right through her coat, and she could feel the laser torch and shred through her fur on her back. She nearly fell over, pain overiding every other thought in her head, but she managed to keep her balance and keep moving. She could feel her back scream in hot pain. She jumped onto the hood of the car, skidding over and then jumping into the passenger side, slamming the door closed behind her with more force then needed. She took a deep breath, leaning against the chair on her side, too scared to look at her back.

“Made it.” She muttered, flinching as her back continued to throb. Carefully, she tossed her jacket below her feet, the material that was left had been rubbing against her wound.

[Glyph]

Banner stiffened, eyes popping wide in alarm as he watched the air light up with laser fire. The hedgehog tripped, fell, and scrambled back to her feet, narrowly avoiding a very painful, smoking death.

She almost made it--almost. Then, as if time had slowed, Banner watched one of the thinner beams rip across her back, vaporizing the material of her coat and ripping a shout from her throat.

He almost thought that would be the end of it--that he would watch this hedgehog die, then and there, without even knowing her name--but then she sprung into motion again. The car bucked as she slammed down on the hood and lunged for the door, leaving a matching pair of dents behind. Banner didn't wait any longer--the moment she touched down in the seat, the fox floored it.

Engine roaring to life, the hovercar shot off across the battered road, breezing past the carnage and leaving a trail of turbulence in its wake. Banner was thrown back into his seat, but he never let his foot off the accelerator, scraping by other stalled vehicles and putting some distance between the pair and their clunky pursuers.

The fox glanced over at the hedgehog, but his attention was diverted before he could assess her injury--three points of light had appeared in the rearview mirror. They were being trailed.

"Damn, not yet we haven't!" He hissed, dropping his foot until he could feel the floor beneath his boot, "Hang on!"

[Kiwi]

She could feel the car suddenly lurch forward. Tara dug her fingers into the leather of the seat as she was pressed against it from the sudden acceleration. She reached her hand behind her, and fastened her seat beat, careful to not touch her back in any way possible. Her head glanced back, looking at the robots apparently chasing after them. The hedgehog groaned, and felt like beating her head against a dashboard. These robots were stubborn, that was for sure. She ran a hand through her black side bang, trying to think of something, and only managed to pull up blanks. She’d leave it up to the fox to escape these guys.

That reminded her…

“So, what’s your name? Might as well get the name of the guy that’s saving my hide.” She laughed slightly. Keeping her mind occupied from thoughts of a laser-y death would do wonders. It really would, cause it felt like her heart might burst from panic if it kept at it. Her gaze returned to the pale gray fox seated across from her.

[Glyph]

The dug his nails into the padded steering wheel through his gloves, gritting his death. The road ahead blurred together more and more with each turn he made, but Banner wasn't worried about getting lost--this was still his city, even if it was currently crashing down around him, and he knew it like the back of his glove. What worried him were the laser flashes reflecting in the windshield, and the shapes growing steadily closer in the mirrors.

Gritting his teeth, Banner spun the wheel and nearly flipped around the bend, but the fox managed to hold it steady, and was rewarded by the useless burst of laser fire that shot through the turbulence he'd left behind. Still, it was only a small victory--it wouldn't take the 'bots long to reorient themselves and continue the chase.

In the spare moment, however, Banner glanced at the hedgehog, registering her question.

"Banner." He said simply, flicking his pale fur away from his face. "You?"

Something flashed in the rear again, and Banner's face darkened. If they were to make it out of here, they were going to have to lose the trailers...

Leaving one hand on the steering wheel, the fox turned and reached for the gun that'd landed on the island between their seats. With it in hand, the fox's focus returned to the mirror, eyes flashing an eerie, calculating violet. An idea was forming in his mind, hurried along by the growing shapes and flashes.

"... Hey kid, you know how to drive?"

[Kiwi]

Tara found herself becoming more and more concerned with just how grim this situation was, as her eyes trailed the destroyed ruins of the city she grew up in. She knew these buildings, she knew someone of the people who lived there, and each building they past seemed to set another weight on her shoulders. How many died? How many ran like she did? Who was still alive, but barely? Her hand set against the window and she closed her eyes, trying to ignore the grief. Tara was always far to open hearted. She was compassionate, and misery never fitted well with her. So many others seemed able to shield themselves from such things, but Tara didn’t know if she’d ever be able to do such a thing.

Her grip on her seat only seemed to grow stronger at his sharp turn. She felt her gut do a front flip, and the hedgehog felt dizzy. From blood loss or just motion sickness, she wasn’t sure, but she prayed for the later. She could hold in. She reminded herself of how many times she had been banged up. If she could take a broken bone or two, she could handle this. She gritted her teeth. Her back didn’t hurt much, it was just numb, and that’s probably what scared her the most.

She turned her head, looking at the fox- no- Banner with tired eyes. “Tara. Just Tara.”

Her eyes went wide at his next question. Drive? “Uh. I have a permit. Does that count?”

[Glyph]

Banner studied the young hedgehog, easily catching the note of weariness in her voice. Tara was battered and bleeding, and while the wound on her back wasn't large, it was deep. She was damn lucky that laser blast hadn't grazed her spine--that wouldn't have been the least bit pretty. As it was, it looked like she was starting to go into shock. He might be able to do something about it, but not here--and it would spell a death sentence if they couldn't find some place to hide out soon.

Still, the fox's eyes betrayed nothing as they returned to monitoring the road and the mirrors, although the blatant, reluctant confusion in her statement might have crinkled their hard edges a bit.

A permit, huh? Banner's muzzle quirked into the tiniest beginnings of a smirk. She really was just a kid, wasn't she?

A permit would do for what he had in mind, although in all honesty, what did it matter? There were no officers left to pull them over; Hell, he himself was carrying a badge right now! This wasn't just an emergency--it was life or death.

"Works for me." The fox straightened, jerking his chin toward the wheel and letting a bit off the *air. "Keep'er straight, kid!"

And that was when he let go of the wheel and dove half-way out the window.

--------

*Gas, air, same difference. XD

[Kiwi]

Tara jumped when she saw Banner almost jump out the window, and let go of the wheel. Immediately, she unbuckled her seat beat, and jolted from her seat, grasping the padded leather wheel with her gloved hands. The next thing she knew she was driving. She took a deep breath, the most she had ever driven was a hour with a instructor, and she had been driving the speed limit in a parking lot. Now she was driving a car through a high speed chase. Quite a jump in progress if she dared to say so. Her control was slightly twitchy, every time she avoided something, her turns would be jerk-ish, but it would do. She looked at him from the corner of her eye, wondering just what in god’s name he was doing.

Her attention turned back to the road, trying to focus on simply driving as smooth as possible. Tara was the type of person who needed to really focus on something to do it right, any distractions tending to be…well, distractions. Oh god, this was totally illegal. She was driving on the wrong side of the road, was way over the speed limit, wasn't wearing a seat beat, and the REAL driver had his body half way out a window.

“I just hope this plan of yours works!” She yelled to him as she turned around a corner, and then struggling to steer the wheel back into place, and keep the car straight.

[Glyph]

Banner felt the car swerve, and for a moment he wondered if he should have given her more warning. Then, the wheels leveled out, and, while the motion was jolting, they were travelling more-or-less straight down the middle of the road.

"'Atta girl," the older Mobian growled, keeping his boots firmly planted between the driver's seat and door, and his tail whisked out of Tara's face.

I hope so too. Banner thought grimly, then pushed the thought out of his head and braced his belly against the rubber seal of the window. He earned a nice case of rug-burn for his trouble, but the fox ignored it and instead swung his gun around, cocking it and keeping as still as anyone could while leaning out the window of a speeding hovercar. "Hold'er steady..."

Banner waited for the first robot to round the bend they'd just made and took careful aim; the moment it leveled out and exposed the vent it used to aid in its flight abilities--it also expose its overheating inner-workings. He could see the crisscrossing wires, the air tank and solar battery, and the faintly smoking engine from here...

It made for a spectacular explosion.

The moment the bullet hit it, shrapnel seemed to burst in all directions, riding on a shock wave pushed along by a miniature fireball. One was down for the count, but the other two pushed through the smoke after them without a moment's remorse for their lost companion.

Frowning and hefting his rapidly lightening gun back experimentally, the fox glanced over his shoulder.

"You still got that laser pistol in there?"

[Kiwi]

She heard his praise from the window, and felt a small smile take over her features. It was a small compliment, but that’s all she needed to keep herself from driving like the reckless, inexperienced driver that she was. Her hands stopped shaking, and she found herself almost zoning out, the only thing that mattered was the car and the road before her.

The explosion made her jolt slightly, but she kept the wheel straight. Using one of the mirrors, she quickly glanced at the explosion of the destroyed robot, she gave a cheeky grin. “Served that bastard right!” She spat out, her ears tilting forward as she leaned over the wheel to give him some more leg room. Of course, she saw the other two coming up fast, and frowned. Shoot.

At his question, Tara’s hand quickly darted towards her coat pocket, removing the laser gun. “Yeah. I got it right here.” She responded, her eyes darting between Banner and the road. She swore when she saw that they were coming to a T-shaped intersection.

“Damn. Hang on!” She blurted out, and spun the wheel quickly, her other foot slammed on the brake. The car did a nice skid, and Tara kept reminding herself that a hover car and a air gear were a lot alike, just that the hover car was bigger. The next second, she slammed her foot on the accelerator, just like what he had done earlier.

[Glyph]

Banner risked a glance back as he reached for the gun and nearly grinned at the sight of the hedgehog, hunched over the wheel and cursing their pursuers.

"They rest'll be joining it just shortly--OOF!"

The car swerved, and it was all Banner could to to keep his one-handed hold on the slick metal. He was thrown against the front of the window slot with an audible crack, and would have kept going if his boot hadn't been lodged sideways beneath the seat. Pain exploded up his ankle, but the fox, dangling inches away from the pavement speeding past, pushed it away. There wasn't time for pain; not with those two demons on their tail.

Growling, the Mobian raised the laser pistol and set his sights on the approaching machines. Tara had leveled the hovercar out, and the shot would have been perfect had the fox's ankle suddenly sent a bolt of lightning up his back.

The shot went wild as he winced, carving a channel through an old cathedral as they passed, sending bricks and masonry raining down on the road behind them. Through blurry, streaming eyes, Banner watched the quicker of the remaining two robots speed closer... only to be stopped dead in its tracks as a dislodged gargoyle came to an unfortunate rest on top its metal head, splitting it in two crunched halves.

Not exactly what I'd intended, but...

[Kiwi]

She heard the crack. Tara paused. She knew exactly what that crack meant, because she’d heard it so many times. Her wide eyes turned towards the fox, her grip on the wheel faltering. She could hear the crash of the other robot being destroyed, but she didn’t care about that. Both of them were injured now. That was not good. Not good at all. They still had one on their tail as well. She flinched. It was probably his ankle judging by the sound. She had never broken her ankle bone before, but she knew that it usually hurt. A lot. One of her friends had busted it in a crash once, and he was crying the whole way to the hospital.

“Banner. Scale of one to ten, how bad does your ankle hurt?” Tara blurted out, concern laced in her voice. If this guy was in serious trouble, then Tara might as well shoot herself right here and now. She couldn’t possibly hope to make it through this city by herself. It sounded rather selfish, but it was the sad truth. Of course, she was also concerned for his well being.

“I have a apartment only half a mile from here. If we can shake the last one, I can patch it up. I got like…seven first aid kits.” Seven was not an exaggeration, it might actually be a understatement. Tara may make money with her profession, but balancing bills, food, and equipment for her gear sucked up all of her cash. She didn’t have enough money for medial insurance or anything of the sort. It was times like this she wished she still had a foster family, but then she’d remind herself just how annoying and confusing the process tended to be.

[Glyph]

Banner's eyes widened, but it took him a moment to muster enough willpower up to pull himself back into position. Without his nose inches from dragging the pavement, he could better appreciate the distance the last robot had covered after its comrade had fallen.

"On a scale of one to ten?" He grunted, wincing as he shifted his weight to bring the pistol up to eye level, "Bad. But nothing I won't survive."

The fox leaned back shifting his weight off his left foot and putting it all onto his right, a growl rumbling through his teeth.

"Don't you worry about me," He winced, focused on stilling his shaking arms, "Just get us there; I'll be good to go as soon as I take out this little--" The fox's rather colorful description of the robot's ancestry was cut short by a laser blast that took out the left taillight.

"Dammit!" The fox snarled, ducking farther back into the car. The thing was riding their turbulence like this was some sort of Grand Prix!

An idea popped into his head suddenly, and the fox twisted around painfully to stare in the opposite direction, ignoring the lasers long enough to get his bearings straight.

"There's a tunnel coming up soon!" He said quickly, pointing into the distance down the road. The stalled cars were piling up around them, and Banner suspected that it would only get worst as they sped farther down the highway... But they were in a hovercar for crying out loud! Turning back to fire a warning shot at the encroaching 'bot, Banner shouted over the wind, "Head toward it--we've gotta lose this thing now!"

[Kiwi]

She watched him drag himself upright, a sigh escaping her to know that he was tough enough to concentrate on something besides his pain. She listened to the rest of his words, nodding. If he said he could handle it, then she trusted him. She heard him shift his weight, and she returned her eyes to the road.

Her ears switched back when she heard the shattering of a taillight, she bit her lip, watching Banner move back inside the vehicle to avoid anymore possible damage. Tara moved back and forth in between lanes to try and avoid any more possible laser shots, of course this quickly stopped when he spoke again.

“Oh! I know that tunnel! I always raced through it after curfew on my air gear! My friends and I would go so fast through it. Totally illegal, but it‘s not like the cops ever caught us.” She nailed the gas, this car was actually a lot easier to drive now. Good, the more comfortable she was, the better. Of course, she didn’t know that she had just blurted that out to a lawman, if she did, she probably wouldn’t have added in that last detail about her little illegal racing adventures.

Of course, she noticed the jam of cars, she grumbled under her breath, but kept a constant speed as she moved around them. Careful not to do any skids that could harm Banner again. She was actually kind of relieved when they finally entered into the tunnel, she kept her foot on the gas and waited on Banner to do whatever he had planned.

[Glyph]

Again, Banner had to perk an eyebrow, but decided that this was neither the time nor the place to enlighten the girl that he may or may not have been one of those cops she'd just admitted to outracing. Instead, the fox kept an eye on the mecha trailing them, calculating the distance and speed. Every once in a while, he'd fire off a round to keep it from coming any closer, but this 'bot had apparently opted for the upgrade on its AI. It kept straying into the blind spot behind the car, but all while Banner couldn't shoot at it without risking the integrity of the car, neither could it get a clear shot at them. All Banner could do was wait as the overpass grew closer, and hope that his idea worked.

Then, almost as if it had be planned, Tara hit the gas, shooting the car forward and adding a bit of distance between them and the robot. Without another moment's thought, Banner whirled... And fired directly into the approaching tunnel.

The laser flew in an arc, carving huge chunks from the entrance and highway above (and Banner realized that Tara had indeed been extremely lucky to suffer just a glancing blow). They dropped like, well, concrete, and Banner prayed to what ever gods were out there that Tara would not try to brake.

It wouldn't have mattered, anyway--they were already going so fast that the hovercar's momentum carried it under and past the tumbling debris and shooting off into the darkened tunnel beyond. Banner winced at the sound of rock slamming down just short of the back bumper, but, ultimately, Banner's plan had worked.

The robot must have wished it only had to worry about a little chipped paint--but it couldn't have wished long, because it was almost immediately buried beneath the mini-avalanche raining down from above, exploding in a shower of sparks that were quickly overtaken by dust.

Banner growled, partly in pain, mostly in smug triumph. "And that's what you get for tailgating."