Nevada Winds - TFP

2.

KAYDE

Kayde reached for his belt buckle and pressed down on the latch. He fell forward against the broken windshield, the glass piercing through his palms as he forced his muscles to lift his body. The truck groaned, smoke choked his lungs as he desperately inhaled any oxygen he could. He reached up for Flynn but couldn't get a vantage point. "Flynn!" Kayde howled. He grabbed onto the closest part of Flynn he could—his hand, shaking it to wake Flynn up.

Flynn's body had become limp, his lips parted. His eyes rolled to the back of his head. The only signs of life left were the occasional twitch of his fingers. Kayde painfully turned himself around. Every one of his muscles fired nothing but torturous pain throughout his entire body. Come on, come on, come on soldier! Kayde grit his teeth and with a groan, dragged himself out of the broken window of the driver's side. The broken glass scraped against his back and belly. They might not pierce his skin but they sure as Hell still hurt.

Panting heavy and covered in sweat, Kayde wasted no time. He struggled to his feet, staggered, then fell. His legs were shaking too much to move well. He crawled, then, across the wreckage. The scattered remnants of the truck crunched beneath him as he hauled himself to the opposite side. With aching limbs he reached out and grabbed onto Flynn by the collar of his shirt. He jerked back using his full body weight. It pulled Flynn out of the car. The door on his side was missing.

"Flynn? Flynn?" Breathing hard, Kayde laid Flynn onto the ground and set his quivering fingers to his brother's neck, feeling for a pulse. Flynn's face had become covered in minor cuts, there were probably more on his body. Kayde let out a sigh of relief when the familiar bump of a pulse touched his fingers. Flynn's head tilted to the side and he blinked, he might have been conscious, but he sure as Hell wasn't self aware.

Kayde laid over his brother, when the ground beneath them shook. Was another car coming? It didn't matter. He shielded Flynn with his own body, preparing for pain and a hopefully swift death. A shadow fell over them, completely enveloping them both. Kayde turned to see what it was, then froze. A glowing, blinding magenta light pierced his eyes. He narrowed them against it. Mechanical whirrs and clicks filled his ears, was he hallucinating? "What...what the..."

Kayde could no longer speak, when the creature that came into view finally materialized in his vision. A massive...robot? It pointed something at him—he recognized a gun when he saw one. He wrinkled his nose into a defiant snarl. Despite every instinct in his brain telling him to turn tail and run, he couldn't just leave Flynn! "What are you?!" Kayde yelled, so loud that his throat strained. "What the Hell are you?!" Did it even understand what he was saying? He didn't know.

Kayde sucked in more desperate gulps of oxygen, his body swayed as he tried to stand up. "Please, please don't hurt-" He rasped. Promptly, an interruption took place. Through the dust in the desert, a yellow muscle-car raced towards them. Not again. Kayde thought. Though, he quickly retracted that. The yellow car—transformed?—into a giant robot too, but it was much different from the purple-black one in front of him. This one had larger, rounder eyes. The doors of the muscle car had been turned into what looked like wings on its back. Instead of a mouth it had some kind of face covering. Overall, it was a lot smoother in make than the sharp, hostile features of the purple one without a face.

The yellow robot narrowed its blue eyes and ran over. Every step it took made tremors in the ground. It punched the purple one across its head and sent it sprawling to the ground a few yards away. Metal clanged against metal and the plates on its arm shifted, what made up its hand retracted to be replaced with some kind of blaster. The shot fired up, then flew at the rival robot's head. It pierced through and its head fell back, whatever light on its body gradually dimmed. Kayde could only assume this meant it was dead.