Halfway to the car, something crashed into the pavement nearby.
All around him, gunfire opened up as a man-shaped monster stood up. Dressed all in red, it roared and lifted its arms.
In its hand was a mangled Other, the head of the poor Andrea twisted all the way around and her chest flattened as if she’d been hit by a steamroller and dragged under.
Bullets sank into the hulking mound of muscle with no apparent effect.
Pulling the head off the dead woman, the man hurled it at a different Other. The gory projectile smashed into her leg and bent it backwards with a crack.
Kit, Andrea, and Felix took several steps back as the Others went to work. They moved in a wolf pack formation, the one behind firing to keep the monster busy, as the ones in front kept its attention moving.
“Kit, can you drop him?” Felix asked.
“No. I never could get into his head when he was on my team, and I can’t now.”
“What?” Felix’s question was cut off as a bloody arm zipped by his head. It’d only missed because Andrea shoved him to one side, keeping him safe.
“His name’s Tanker, he worked with—”
A lightning bolt tore free from the top of a building and hit Felix in the chest. The armor seemingly was built to take such a hit, and the lightning vanished.
The boom of the thunder practically rattled Felix’s teeth out of his head.
Felix was pitched forward as something slammed into his back. Rolling head over heels, he fetched up behind an Other and dashed off towards the convoy.
Where he’d been a moment ago, there now stood a humanoid shadow with a blade, trying to fend off Andrea Prime. He could only barely make out the edges of the form, as it seemed to blend with the very shadows it resembled.
Apparently, Felicia’s armor really could stand up to most anything.
Kit picked up the blurry wraith from the ground and levitated it into the air. Setting off at a run, Kit and Andrea joined him near the cars.
The struggling shadow was slammed into the ground several times, each bone-cracking pavement slap eliciting a groan.
Kit lifted the fellow and held them still. The moment the shadow twitched, she slammed them back into the ground again.
There was no further movement after that.
Andrea popped open the trunk while eyeing the ongoing fight with the savage monster man. Pulling out a set of jumper cables, she bound the shadow up, then tossed it into the trunk.
“We should get out of here,” Kit said. “They won’t be able to hold Tanker forever, and Bolt is still out there. That still leaves—”
“Well, I never. If it isn’t Augur.”
A man in a yellow-and-black spandex suit stood a few feet off. Even his head was covered in the material.
“You’re looking great lately. If I di—”
Andrea buried the shadow’s blade in the man’s gut and ripped it upwards. Intestines spilled out of the man’s stomach like spaghetti pouring out of a pot.
Whipping the blade back the other way, she decapitated the man. The shiny body suit material snapping down towards his bloody midsection as the head came free.
Picking up the head, which actually rolled its eyes, she tossed it at Tanker.
“Reabsorb and retreat!” Andrea called out. Getting into the driver’s seat, she twisted the ignition immediately.
Kit and Felix wasted no time and got in.
Andrea slammed the gas before the doors had even closed and had them off like a shot.
Another lightning bolt crackled to life and shattered the road in front of them.
Andrea cranked the steering wheel one way, then the other, avoiding the massive ditch with a few scant centimeters to spare.
“He won’t be giving up that easy. We’ll need to keep an eye out. He lands one and the battery is toast,” Kit just about yelled.
“Hmph.” Andrea spun the wheel and took them off down an alley, the rear quarter panel rebounding off a wall.
“I texted Ioana and Miu. They’ll lock down the facility and keep watch,” Kit said, tucking her phone away.
“Kit, they knew you, you know them.” Felix looked out the rear window as Others scrambled in every direction, absorbing the dead and escaping in multiple directions.
“They’re former heroes, Felix. Of course I know them. I worked with them often enough. They were supposed to be there when we tried to take out Skipper.” Kit was grasping the “Oh God” handle above her, her other hand pressed to the dashboard.
“You fought Skipper?” Andrea asked, skidding them out of the alley and into a street.
Horns went off all around them as she nearly hit several cars as she drifted through.
“I think so. Felix took my memories of the period before we… before we ended up as slaves. One of the last memories I have is of starting to draw up plans on how to fight Skipper. It was just after they’d entered the city and started to take over.”
“Okay, so I’ve never heard who or what Skipper really is. Who is he? She?” Felix tightened his seatbelt after Andrea recovered from the multilane skid and blew through a red light.
“We don’t know. We think it’s a man, but we’re not sure. Or at least, we weren’t at the time. Maybe I should get those memories back from you soon.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever. Let’s just get the fuck home first, yeah?”
Andrea drifted through another turn and wiped out a speed limit sign, the metal post snapping and going flying off behind them.
“This is fun! Maybe we could do this some other time.
“Without the bad guys chasing us.”
“We are the bad guys,” Kit lamented.
“No we’re not! We didn’t attack them, they attacked us! Didn’t ask us a question or anything. Bad guys do that,” Andrea cheerfully crowed as she brought them out of the curve.
“They did, didn’t they…” Kit said softly.
Chapter 22 - Old Friends -
As they sped along the streets, Felix had the distinct impression things weren’t getting better.
Maybe it was the shadow they’d thrown in the trunk. Or the Others being slaughtered. Or the fact that Kit seemed nervous.
Or the massive flying, angry, screaming man that landed on the roof of the car.
Crumpling as if it were a soda can, the car folded in on itself.
Shouting with rage, the man known as Tanker started ripping handfuls of the roof off.
Andrea pulled a pistol out of somewhere and rammed the nose of it up into the man’s junk, then pulled the trigger.
The yelling turned into shrieking as Andrea emptied the entire clip.
A massive hand came down swatting at her, before leaping free of the ruined car.
Andrea’s arm was bent at an unnatural angle at the forearm. After a second, blood began pumping as the wrist and hand detached and fell free from her forearm.
The massive monster had managed to tear off Andrea’s lower arm in a single hit.
Andrea screamed in pain, clutching to the wheel with the other hand as she kept them moving.
Felix leaned over the console and reached down towards Kit’s midsection.
Grabbing a hold of her skirt, he yanked at it.
“Felix, this isn’t the time!” shrieked Kit, her eyes wild as she looked at him.
“I need your belt,” Felix replied. Pulling at her skirt again, he got eyes on the prize.
Unbuckling it, he snatched it free of her skirt and then grabbed the stump of Andrea’s arm.
Looping the belt quickly around the elbow joint, he cinched it incredibly tight and looped it back around. Giving it a final jerk, he tucked the belt loop into itself.
“That’ll hold you while I fix it. Keep going while I see if I can get your arm to grow back.”
Felix called up Andrea’s character sheet, then dismissed it when a thought came to him.
Half of Andrea’s problem was she had no resiliency.
“Fuck it,” Felix said, focusing on the idea of giving her extreme and controlled regeneration.