"Well, this got boring rather fast." Anya looked around, being in the middle of nowhere.

"At least worry replaced with boredom made for a nice change of pace," Kikaro added.

"I guess you're right. But it's still a tad bit dangerous nonetheless. The truck and the cars, off-roading as such, it's very likely that they'd tip over."

"Haha, you'd surely know a thing or two about dangerous driving."

"Still got my driver's license." Anya folded her arms.

"Didn't you hit Luna center mass while driving drunk?"

Anya tried to find an excuse, "Tactical choice."

"Tactical or not, I'm surprised the car was what took her out compared to Tiki's insane strength." Kikaro wondered.

"I'm more surprised as to how we have the pain tolerance we do but still get hurt with basic stuff we do every day."

"Pain has such a bad reputation when it's needed. I'll have you know, pain is almost always a necessity to achieve happiness."

Anya waved at Kikaro to stop, "Ok, enough is enough dude. I am relaxed, but nowhere near in the correct headspace to process any more of your philosophical bullshit. I've had my literal fill for the day, so shut up and let me be."

"Alright, alright, I'll quiet down and look at the setting moon." Kikaro gazed towards the horizon.

The morning was about to come soon, the sky started to lose its dark coating as the moon started to set in favor of the sun rising, having gone hours inside the car, travelling and stretching to get rid of their soreness. No hiccups along their ride, with all the cars and trucks travelling at a slower than average pace to avoid any accidents along their way. The grass of the field that they passed by bent to the direction of their momentum as they slowed down at some uphill or downhill parts, allowing the broken flora to entice their noses into the fresh morning dew that their uninterrupted existence held tightly, all but renewing it every morning before broken.

Eventually, as the moon finally set as Anya slowly started to fall asleep under the loss of adrenaline pumping into her blood to cause her to relax enough. Drifting slowly into her sleep, it wasn't long before Kikaro would nudge her to wake up.

Anya rubbed her eyes, "What the hell, dude? It's been an awful day of walking back and forth, let me be."

Kikaro cocked an assault rifle as he changed the magazine to a full one to be sure, "Oh, my bad! You can go ahead and sleep if you want to, I'll take care of things. There's a pair of headphones in the front cabinet too, if you don't want to hear the gunshots."

Anya was instantly woken up, "What?!"

"Turns out we were being followed all this time. Look." he pointed behind them.

From the now dimly lit horizon from the rising sun, a set of 4 headlights were more than clearly visible, with one car and two motorcycles, almost as if they were an escort to the car itself. All of the vehicles being matte black, with no flags, no logos and no initials showcasing them belonging to some form of an enforcement body, it was more than clear to them that their intentions were anything but friendly as they closed in fast, having what appeared to be thick, specialized wheels for traversing non vertical and non-concrete terrain. Upon seeing the fine details and realizing that they were specifically hunting them down, being aware and informed enough to both modify their vehicles and track them in the middle of nowhere, every single one of the escort vehicles on their side got behind the truck, forming a barrier as it allowed the truck itself to speed up ahead. A transmission from their radio was quick to follow as they received orders from Jesse, who made the decisive choice to drop all negotiations, to begin with, and instead go on the offensive without risking an exchange of words.

"Load yourselves up right now! These guys are more than specifically geared to get us; they're darting towards our location. No words, once they are within range, open fire!" Jesse commanded.

"I wanted to sleep, and you're shifting me from a 30 to a 100?!" Anya quickly pulled up her gun and cocked it lighting fast.

Kikaro took aim as he glance at Anya's movements, "Woah that was quick! Never quite knew you had that coming for ya!"

"I'm also glad. Because that at least means there was a period that you weren't stalking me like a creepy moron." Anya took aim behind them, "So these cars are the ones? The all-black?"

"You wanted a different type? Or do you expect any more cars to be around in the middle of some green hills in nowhere?" Kikaro shrugged.

"Fair point. When's the time?" Anya prepared to fire.

"Eh, I'm not such a good leader, so I'll wait for the Turned friends of ours on the second row seat to open fire when they enter our effective range before I do."

Those words said, slowly but surely, the group of black vehicles slowly closed in on them as both parties kept on speeding up, their ride being extremely unstable and bumpy along the way, before they slowly began to drift slowly, as the ground was filled to the brim with soggy, now compressed grass that massively reduced friction. Getting closer and closer, no one from Anya's side had a say or made a move for the matter, before the unknown enemy side immediately took the first move and opened fire, instantly wasting one Turned on the second row seat right behind Anya and another on the co-driver seat on the first row, as she avoided the hit by being dragged down for cover by Kikaro's reactions, he instead returning fire as he took several bullets directly on, unwavering an unflinching from it all. From the windows of the black vehicles, the one's opening fire were clearly Turned themselves, with one of the two bikes also being driven by a human in the front and a Turned that opened fire in the back, raising many more alarms for the other side.

"Wait...Turned against Turned?" Kikaro wondered.

"They took two of our guys down, we're returning supportive fire!" Jesse yelled through the radio, trying to get any sort of thing done to defend everyone as best he could.

"I'll go!" Anya took the initiative.

Taking full advantage of the supportive fire and the window of opportunity created by it as their enemies fell back into their car, the others lowered their heads on the motorcycles, and Anya briefly got up and took three very well and accurately placed shots at the motorcycle on the right. The second shot landed cleanly, hit and ingrained itself on its front wheels, unable to pierce it as it kept on with its momentum.

"I'm almost 90% sure I hit the bastard's tire but it didn't pop." Anya fell back to cover.

"Wow! Nice shot Ana! You know, your gun use is so, so much better than your sword use! That was basically awful compared to this!" Kikaro excitedly said, still just standing up and begging to be shot.

"Thanks, but get down!" Anya futilely tried to pull him down.

"Why though?" he got confused.

"Kikaro!" Anya yelled.

Just as the supportive fire ended, their allies needing to reload, the enemies popped back out and up again, unleashing their own rounds back at them, some of which directly hit the truck which the passengers were being transported with. A series of screams, not of pain but fear followed, as they then very quickly realized that they were being targeted as the bullets bounced off the reinforced steel. Between them, Kikaro stood in front of Anya as he ended up receiving a volley of bullets of his own, many of them resulting in a direct hit, as he didn't even both to take his firing stance to show his profile, instead looking at his enemies dead ahead as they all focused his easy to hit center mass.

"God dammit, bullets bounced off the truck, the passengers realized that we were being attacked through the noise cancellation layer of the steel! More of this will just send them into a panic frenzy!" Jesse informed through the radio.

"Kikaro has been shot!" Anya worryingly replied, "Kikaro has been-eh?" she looked up.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Simply and calmly standing there, nonchalantly waiting for every single one of his enemies to finish firing their weapons and emptying their magazines, as he held his own gun above his shoulders and even yawned before receiving one final round of ammunition straight to his open mouth. Before the bullet could even make contact, however, he quickly gritted, catching it mid-flight, without it being fast enough to enter his mouth, as he casually smiled with the bullet right between his front teeth.

Anya was stunned, "Oh...amazing..." She gazed at Kikaro as he stood up above her.

He spat the bullet out right after, "Alright, all right. You surprised attacked and managed to quickly kill two of our allies, sure, that was well played." he placed the assault rifle down calmly, next to Anya, before getting back up and cracking his fists, "Playtime's over now."

Kikaro stepped right on the trunk of the car in the back, pressing with his feet at an angle, before jumping with force enough to cancel all the forward momentum he had gained from being on the car, to begin with. The car itself made a slight upward ramp before slamming back down and continuing on its way, with Kikaro now flying mid-air as it built distance away from him. Perfectly controlling his flight, he put his hands in his jacket's pockets, before twisting and turning the exact way he wanted to perform his move.

His smile, playfulness and somewhat annoying but characteristic chuckle faded in an instant, "Look what you made me do." and he got serious.

While Anya and the others built distance from him, the enemies came right at him, with Kikaro perfectly preparing and aligning a roundhouse kick during his flight. His heel connected from the right side of the right bike that escorted the black car, right in the middle of the driver's head. With the force of the high speed the driver was heading at and the additional, massive force of Kikaro's roundhouse heel strike, despite the helmet he was wearing, the driver's head alongside the helmet broke into several pieces as his brains, followed by broken pieces of reinforced plastic from the helmet, his skull's bone all flew and scattered down on the field's floor as if someone had used the most powerful available shotgun pinpoint, point blank, in the middle of his face. Despite the fact that the driver died a horrific death in an instant, the Turned gunman behind him was anything but lucky. Due to his increased size and height, Kikaro's heel stroke right on his chest, which still has such a massive force behind it, that it managed to break even his fortified, enhanced ribcage that human-animal hybrid demi-humans that were Obsulyte users who had become Turned were rumored to have. After a cracking sound that followed a very deep gasp, the last one the Turned gunman would ever take, he too exploded, splitting in half as if he had connected with an extremely thin pipe right on his chest, that distributed all its force on one tiny, horizontal area like the sharp end of a pinhead. His lower half separated from his upper half said upper half flying off behind them along with his rifle, the motorcycle then began losing its forward direction as the split instant that had passed, killing both enemies on it at once, caused the driver's headless body to start dropping on the left and taking the wheel with it.

In another instant, Kikaro took his left hand out of his pocket as he grabbed onto the bike's backside, placing his left foot on the ground before the right and grinding along a small distance. Flicking his hand to the right just enough, with his massive strength, he forced the bike's front wheel to momentarily come right back into the center as the driver's body dropped down and fell behind them. Making a short hop, he took his other hand out of his pocket and used his momentum to jump right over the remaining bottom half of the gunman, right on the driving position of the bike, placing both his hands on the handle and regaining full control of the bike as he started speeding back up to catch with the others again. Anya, witnessing it all, was left even more speechless as she never once thought, through everything that had happened up until now, that such precision and extreme demonstration of strength was possible, especially from someone that appeared as mild mannered as Kikaro.

"Holy shit!" Anya yelled out loud in surprise.

"To the side!", a gunman told Anya as he prepared a massive looking weapon to fire it, placing it right in the middle of the second seat row, as the gun's connected muzzle extended beyond the third row and trunk.

"Hmm!" Anya nodded as she quickly dropped down and covered her ears in anticipation.

Kikaro then continued his brutal assault by driving faster, going to the left and placing himself directly in front of the black car that had most of the henchmen, 5 in total, inside. In another demonstration of strength, he got up as he drove the bike and placed both his feet, tightly squeezed together, right on the back end of the bike, forcing it to do a wheelie. As he slowly dragged the front end towards him with the handle. Being in total control, he let his feet slide off the back end of the bike. As soon as his feet came into contact with the ground, he made a short, backwards angled bunny hop that lifted him a considerable distance off the ground as he massively reduced his forward momentum again, all while being able to freely carry along with him the entire bike, holding his hands firm on its handle despite it all. Precisely thereafter, with the bike at hand, the black car reached him insanely quickly. Kikaro then lowered his hands first, before his lower body, slamming and completely destroying the front window of the car by hitting it with the bike's back wheel, with a combined force of both his swing and the forward momentum the enemies were going at, as his feet landed square on the roof of it and he regained his balance on top of the car. The back wheel found the driver of the car dead center in the head, with such force that despite him also wearing heavy gear, his helmet cracked and his head flick backwards enough to cause a momentary loss of senses.

Not giving up yet, like a hydraulic press, Kikaro forced the bike towards him harder and harder, all while the back wheel pressed against the car driver's head as the car slowed down. Slamming on the gas, a watery sound, accompanied by splatters and the surprised yelling of the rest of the gunmen inside the car followed, as Kikaro pressed on, treating the back wheel of the bike like a cheese grinder, completely pulverizing the car driver's head into pulp as he even penetrated through the driver's seat head pillow, leaving the entire bike completely inside the car at that point, the gunman behind the driver's seat barely escaping getting scraped the exact same way the driver did. Finishing them off, Kikaro jumped up high from the roof of the car at a steep angle, crushing it under his feet as he ejected and rapidly approached the convertible Anya was in.

Landing on the drunk of the car, he quickly jumped back inside on the back seat right next to Anya, sitting with his legs crossed as his head was mere inches away from the ion cannon the other mercenary had set up.

"And...Fire," Kikaro ordered the mercenary.

Doing just as told, the broker mercenary pressed the trigger, the cannon rapidly absorbing material energy around it, preparing to fire. The black car then swerved at a steep angle to the left, as the body of the dead driver dropped, and flipped over, tumbling twice as it took along with it the last motorcycle on the left side, all of the vehicles now caught in a rolling cluster. The gun now blasted a massive ray towards the cluster, with enough force to slightly propel the already fast driving car a little bit forward as it directly hit the black car from its underside as it tumbled along. A massive explosion ensued right after, and the only thing that was visible anymore was not the chasing vehicles, but the cloud of fire that rose up into the sky, getting smaller and smaller as they built their distance from it, before eventually calming back down to reveal what looked like a burning pile of metal and just in the distance, everyone else having already gotten as far away as they could, narrowly escaping death.

The mercenary then slowly pulled the gun back up and started disassembling it calmly, as they fixed their speed to better suit the terrain once again, now with concrete visible on the horizon. As soon as the subject of worry had started, it ended within mere minutes by the one mild mannered person Anya started to rapidly question in her mind while being visibly confused as to what her reaction should actually be, when in his presence.

"So..." Anya tried to make conversation.

"Pretty cool, wasn't it?" Kikaro chuckled, "You have no idea about how worried I was that I'd slip and mess it up!"

"Teach me." she took the opportunity to ask, still left in awe.

"Ok, sure."

"Wait, seriously?"

"I mean, what did you expect? I am the one who guided you here, told you to get rid of your weapons and all that, and so might as well." he shrugged.

"Just like that? Just when I found you can do all that? And why isn't anyone else caring about that?!"

Kikaro poked the dead body on the second row seat, "Yikes."

Anya slapped his hand away, "Hey, stop that!"

"Relax, he's dead. Just wanted to see the wounds on this guy...yeap, pretty big, like I thought. Added to the fact that the ones who attacked us are Turned, it was probably NHL."

"Seriously?" Anya was surprised.

"Armored vehicles, weapons that can inflict such massive damage like that, they knew where we were at, had Turned in their crew when Turned are avoided everywhere...all the evidence kind of points to that."

"Why would the NHL attack us when we are helping other Turned, like they're trying to?"

Kikaro shrugged, "I don't know, it's all just a theory. A very abrupt and rushed theory."

Anya sighed, "Beats me right now...we lost two, right?"

"Yeah, we did. But like me, they knew what they signed up for when they did. At least I was here this time and I managed to do my tricks again. There was another trip I wasn't tagging along in, recently when we used the main route that had way more casualties, although thankfully not the transported ones. I think this one was police, or some extremist group or something. I don't quite remember the exact details, but nowhere near what we faced today."

"How is Jesse gonna react to this? I've had my fair share of body watching, but not really...allies."

"Same way he did before, silence. Hence why the radio is not firing up, he's been informed already and you can bet on that. Before we get the civilians out of the car, we are going to have to hand out the bodies for a proper burial down by Vardard's side where Turned are, when we reach it. In any case, we're good now, so you can relax. Shall something happen again, I'll be quick to act." he gave her a thumbs up.

"I think...I'm wide awake."

Anya stayed up along with the rest of the now silenced mercenaries, watching over as the sun rose up from the horizon fully. Eventually, finally getting back on track, after over 10 hours, came the moment where asphalt was seen yet again, and they ditched the off road path as they got back on it, making their way towards their destination at a faster rate. The bodies collected from the others and laid down, they prepared quickly to conceal what had happened to avoid running tears, or worse yet leaving it to be shown to the younger ones, concealing them completely while treating the running blood wounds enough to dry them out, as vital points were struck, enough to make them die instantly, only leaving behind the red remnants of their demise. For now, the only hope that could be seen in the horizon, was the faint but firm existence of tall buildings, as only joy from reaching the destination of this treacherous journey was the only thing in the witness's minds.