The engine of Hotrod’s bike roared like an agitated beast, carrying both Mary and her in hot pursuit of their quarry on rainswept neon-drenched roads. The CorpSec team managed to get a head start on them, considering their waiting vehicle was right outside the warehouse. The intrepid pair of go-gangers, unfortunately, had to make distance for a bike.
Not to say that they weren’t making time and gaining quickly. A four-wheeled cage isn’t going to outrun two wheels any day of the week, short of some kind of super-tuned monstrosity. Super-tuned monstrosities were definitely not in the playbook of any CorpSec team this far out into the Slag, let alone their budget. Big, armored trucks and vans were their modus operandi. Simple and tough.
Simple and tough was just how Hotrod would describe this chase. They were routing straight back into the Metroplex proper, and the road chosen wasn’t exactly the friendliest to Hotrod’s motorcycle. Potholes that an armored truck could easily surmount were gaping crevices that could easily fling them from their metal steed if they didn’t weave around them.
“Can we go any faster?” Mary called out from the pillion, somehow managing to make the process of racking the chamber on her RPM audible over the roaring engine.
“We could, if you weren’t so damn heavy.”
The cyborg cackled at that. Anyone else would have taken that as an insult, but it was a fact that military-grade augments tended to be on the weightier side. A fact that definitely did not assist with the handling of the bike they both straddled.
Kraka-kraka-kraka!
Hotrod thought Mary had already opened fire, but the chunks of asphalt showering her from either side quickly informed her otherwise. Whoever was in the back seat was firing at them from the driver’s side. She threw all of her weight to one side, dipping from the right hand side to the left side of the truck. Mary didn’t even have a chance to return fire, let alone ascertain if it was the bitch who opened fire.
“I could’ve had them,” Mary complained once more.
“Just trust me. Save your ammo,” Hotrod shouted back over her shoulder, her voice barely audible over the din of dueling engines as she maneuvered the bike into position, ready to weave back to the other side should their prey decide to snap back at them once more.
Risking being shot at was almost safer than being directly behind this bozo. She’d seen too many girls tailing a cage in the past, only for the cager to brake and send them hurtling straight to a street doc. Obviously, she had no plans of letting this happen.
“—Really hoping the captain’s doing fine.”
----------------------------------------
Switch slowed down her breathing and shifted into her fighting stance, as she does when facing an opponent who might be worthy.
“A go-ganger trained in close quarters combat arts?” The baguette muncher scoffed. “Or are you just pretending to be?”
“One way for you to find out.” Switch noticed that her opponent's outline became much less vibrant in her thermographic vision. Thermal dampening, most likely.
“Very well. I will put you in your place. As tradition dictates, state your name before we—”
“I! AM! DEATH!” Switch roared as she charged forward, releasing a sudden cry of rage.
Baguette Muncher was visibly surprised by this, however she wasted no time composing herself. She did not run. In fact, she did the very opposite. As she was rushed, the squad leader steadied herself with one clear intention—to let Switch strike first. No doubt, the intent was to use her own strength against her—counterplay and the like. A cocksure grunt escaped her, the sound distorted by the voice warper installed inside her modular mask.
The built up bloodlust was enough to cloud Switch's judgment, and she continued to rush forward, momentarily not recognizing a counter-strike stance she had seen so many times before.
Her cybereyes zoomed in and out of focus, the thermal dampening doing its job of concealing her opponent in the dark.
With the distance now closed, her right arm moved in a wide, diagonal slashing arc, aiming for an area she estimated to be her neck.
Baguette Muncher's response was swift. That was really all that could be said. Switch played into her trap perfectly. A spur erupted from her right hand, the one in the left retracting, and she pushed her right arm across her body with the intention to catch Switch's spur on her own. But that wasn't where it stopped - catching the spur on the inside of her own blade, she relaxed her elbow and just let physics do the rest. That is to say, redirecting the strike harmlessly away from her. Keeping in stride, she followed this up with a quick jab from her left hand to the side of Switch's face.
Switch saw the jab but couldn't react to it fast enough, catching it with her face instead. There was a bit of power behind it, just enough to snap her out of the frenzy. She shoved Baguette Muncher away with her shoulder before jumping back a step, composing herself and shifting into her fighting stance once more. Her head felt clear, the blood-fuelled haze now replaced with a laser focus: to gut this bitch and hear her sing.
Switch's cybereyes honed in on her as she charged her again, repeating the same move from before, with the same bloodcurdling roar. Only this time it was a feint, and she dropped low for a heavy stab towards the kneecap.
Either Baguette Muncher didn't see a feint coming, or she saw it too late. Maybe the bestial assault earlier had set up a certain image in her mind? Either way, the CorpSec had braced herself for another deft dance with death, only to find Switch's spur sailing for her knee instead.
Bad news for her, she did not have enough time to avoid it. Sure, she shifted her weight and ensured that the blow would not remove her leg right there and then, but it was going to connect.
And so was she. Namely, the augmented elbow that was being brought down on the back of Switch's exposed skull, accompanied by an almost anticipatory growl from her.
Switch felt her spurs tearing past her opponent's armor, past her skin, sinking into flesh, ripping cartilage. The annoying bitch did manage to shift slightly at the last split second, which meant she did not tear her leg clean off.
A sharp pain on the back of her head. She reflexively ripped out her spurs through the side, taking a chunk of Baguette Muncher's leg with it. Enhanced muscles worked overtime, contracting and expanding to launch herself backwards, away from the wannabe huntress.
Switch shifted back into her fighting stance, waiting for her opponent to make the move this time.
Baguette Muncher's leg buckled, and she threw a synthetic hand out in front of her to catch herself as the damaged limb gave way.
Curiously enough, there was no cry of pain. In fact, she seemed to be very indifferent about the fact that her leg had now lost a little weight. Could be combat drugs, could be pain blockers, it was not apparent to Switch. What was apparent was that she responded by balling her hand up into a fist and pointing her wrist in Switch's direction.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“You want me, you grease-covered go-gang bitch?” She hissed, strokes of agitation coloring her modulated voice. “Come on. I'm right fuckin' here.”
A corner of Switch's mouth tugged upwards at her taunt. “You want me more than I want you. Hobble your way here, I'll wait.”
Baguette Muncher tilted her head like a confused cat, before there was a series of metallic flicking and clicking sounds. The augmented forearm she was pointing at Switch had cracked down the middle, before her hand contorted backwards like a spider ready to strike.
And from the middle of her hand, a barrel emerged—slightly above where the spurs had erupted from previously.
“No no, you do not understand. I'll give you a chance to come to me, no?” She sang back, the modulated voice laced with venom.
Switch's heart filled with glee when she saw Baguette Muncher pulling out new toys, a wide smile now on her face. Wordlessly, she rushed forward, as if wanting to strike with her spurs again. Instead, right after she closed the gap, she launched herself upwards, legs shooting forward to plant a boot in Baguette Muncher's chin and wrap around her extended arm. She let gravity do the rest and landed on the floor with a thud, taking her opponent down with her.
Baguette Muncher tried to resist the grapple, however being down a leg made that quite hard. When Switch leapt forward, the full roar of a gunshot rang through the room as a dozen pellets flew from her hand. And again. And again.
That being said, only a few of them were any risk to Switch, as a vast majority of the rounds were fired after the arm-lock had started, flying harmlessly around the room and embedding into the surrounding crates and pallets.
Switch applied pressure with her legs and with the aid of her own cyberarms, she popped hers right out of the socket.
As the cybernetic arm was dislocated from its host, she once again wouldn't scream. All that came out was a muted grunt, followed by a vicious snarl as her free hand whipped up towards Switch's hips, the spur quickly erupting out, intending to sink deep into her form.
Her combat instincts were in overdrive. She felt Baguette Muncher's movement, and her legs quickly unwrapped from the now disconnected cyberarm. Still lying down, she reared back one leg and planted another boot square in her jaw, feeling it give way after the full momentum. There was no way this baguette munching bitch had a reinforced neck.
The mask hid the extent of the damage, but considering a modulated yelp came through in response, followed by a distinctive crack of her neck breaking, it was safe to assume she had been squished.
Her remaining limbs fell limp at that; the modulated death rattle of air escaping her broken body filling the room.
Switch disentangled herself from Baguette Muncher and stood up, catching her breath. She was a worthy opponent. But not good enough.
----------------------------------------
Like a devilwolf nipping at the heels of a fleeing doe, Hotrod was hot on the trail of the armored truck. They had long passed the borders of Blackwell at this point. Normally, this would be a massive faux pas, but it was a special occasion tonight. Someone had stepped on the wrong toes and they were about to pay.
The corpo behind the wheel of the armored vehicle had started swerving his big brick of a four wheeler between lanes. Hotrod was better than that, easing off the gas just enough to cause the rear bumper of the truck to catch the air just in front of her front tire. The flailing motions of a dying creature. It just didn’t know it was dying. Yet.
She knew why the driver was panicking. He’d definitely called for reinforcements at this point. They should’ve been here by now. ‘Should've’ being the primary keyword. The plumes of smoke erupting in the distance, likely from the adjacent streets, were a rather good indicator that the cowboy in front of her was flying solo.
Hotrod, on the other hand, wasn’t even remotely close to flying solo. Even from a couple of blocks away, she could hear whooping and bikes revving. A welcome sound, even if they weren’t exactly her girls.
«From: Hekabe»
«Tell your captain I held up my end of the deal. Try not to make a mess of my turf.»
The scant glimpses that she could garner up ahead as she bobbed back and forth to evade the truck were a good indicator that her leg wasn’t being pulled. Hekabe’s crew lined the street, with the only direct route into the metroplex blocked by bikes, wrecked cars, and plascrete barricades. If everything went to plan, he’d turn left—
The van turned left at the intersection, clearly not having any intent of risking slamming into a near half dozen burnt out wrecks, and more than their weight in barricades. The next possible entrance to the metroplex was deep in the badlands. Playing the corpos like a well-tuned instrument. She wished she could see the panic on Shy’s face as they motored their way into territory that couldn’t be described better beyond the words ‘swampy hellhole.’ It smelt like humid shit, and the roads? The roads were worse than the worst roads in the Slag. And that was saying something.
These roads would be their greatest weapon tonight.
“Mary.” Hotrod nodded over her shoulder.
Mary didn’t need clarification. She squeezed the trigger with all of her might, as if it would somehow make her RPM fire even faster. It wouldn’t, but she was evidently having a great time with how loud she was cackling. There was no way those rounds were going to meaningfully penetrate that armored shell, but it would ring some bells inside.
The driver resumed his swerving, this time seemingly out of evasive panic more than trying to swat the duo off of their bike. Left, right. Right, left. Each jerk of the steering wheel caused the back of the truck to fishtail more and more exaggeratedly. It wouldn’t be but a moment of Mary’s shooting before their plan finally reached its fruition. The truck skidded sideways, rearing up onto two wheels, before momentum carried it through into a death roll.
The sickening twisting and crunching of metal intermingled with the spattering of mud was almost deafening as the vehicle hurdled itself over enough times for Hotrod to lose count. She eased off the gas, letting her bike drift to a halt at a safe distance from the spectacle in front of her.
“Here’s hoping they had their seatbelts on. Bozos.”
----------------------------------------
Hotrod muttered a near silent thanks to herself as she approached the wreck on foot. The crash managed to blow out the bulletproof glass, saving her the wait of Mary having to pry the door open with her hands. If it wasn’t miserable enough out here, the light drizzle of rain had turned into a downpour almost just as she set foot into the ravine to retrieve her quarry. It made every step of the way there take that much more effort as the muddy ground saw fit to partially consume her boots with every stride.
She dropped down to her knees to inspect the overturned van, machine pistol at the ready. She didn’t expect anyone to be alive, but as luck would have it, the one person she really did not want to see alive was still breathing.
She wasn’t even sure what words Shy was using to beg for her life. All she saw was red, and all she heard was a loud sharp whining in her skull as she cut the girl’s seatbelt and dragged her from the vehicle. These past few shitty weeks, and here was the catalyst, right in her hands.
She slammed Shy up against the passenger’s side door. Hard. There were no qualms in roughing up her former friend a touch more than she already was.
“—I was just trying to survive!” the pink-haired wanna-be cried out, holding her hands up defensively. She looked like she’d been put through the wringer. Which was less than what she deserved, considering all the shit she had pulled recently.
“The hell do you think the rest of us are doing out here? What makes you more special than anyone you just stabbed in the back?” Hotrod snarled. She poised as if she was about to punch Shy, but she really wanted to hear whatever excuse the traitor could come up with.
“You don’t understand how uncomfortable it is.”
Hotrod could only laugh. If she wasn’t so pissed off, she would have doubled over. Shy earned herself a swift punch straight to the gut.
“Is that really your reason? You got uncomfortable? You. Little. Fucking. Corporate. Princess.” She spat on the ground as she released Shy’s collar, turning on a heel to take a few steps away. She heard Shy fall to the mud, audibly retching.
“You're— You're also just like m—”
“I'm nothing like you, you sniveling little bitch,” Hotrod snarled. “That life is behind me.”
“You— You know that killing me here won't stop—”
“Shy?” Hotrod pivoted back around to face the traitor. “Do you know how many of our girls you’ve hurt? How you’ve fucked everything we’ve worked for?”
Shy opened her mouth to respond, only to be interrupted by the loud bang of Hotrod's machine pistol that echoed all around them. She fell back into the mud with a wet plop, a lead round embedded right between the eyes.
“I wasn’t expecting you to answer.” Hotrod holstered her smoking pistol as she made her way back towards her parked bike and Mary.
The rain became heavier, washing away any lingering feelings she might have had.