On Nick's side of trouble, the Nexus entourage caught on to his little trick and was right back on his heels as they all began to cross over a bridge. This bridge did go over water, but there were multiple smaller and larger one-way bridges twisting and turning like a poorly construed quilt. They sped in a life or death game of cat and mouse, expect in this edition, the maze they ran through was one straight line.
The bridge they found themselves on had two lanes and they were just lucky enough to find that there wasn't enough cars to cover both lanes, allowing them to speed through. The gun fire never hesitated to continue as more than enough cars got caught in the cross fire sending them into frenzies all over the small road. One car turned completely sideways, blocking the way behind Nick and Adrian and a Nexus car smashed through it effortlessly, sending it into the air and over the side.
Whoever was inside was more than assuredly dead, but no one had time to feel guilty given this was far more than some street race. Adrian sat back inside the car, catching his breath.
"These guys are relentless." he heaved.
"I'm sure a polished Nexus solider—he weaved around another car—has a lot more than just his gun." Nick replied, only able to focus on the road.
Getting the message, Adrian unhooked something from his belt and looked back at the cars pursuing them. They were swirling around cars just as easily as Nick was and were only gaining speed. The moment he had a clear shot, he chucked the splicer grenade at the first one. Right when the car ran it over, it exploded. The fancy thing about this grenade was that it exploded only upward and downward from it's flat surface. The hood of the car along with it's front wheels soared through the sky, making the rest of the car began to grind and screech across the bridge in a flurry of sparks. Only to then flip up into the air at the impact of the Nexus car behind it. Good to know that they were team players.
The end of the bridge was fast approaching and Nick felt a woof of joy before he felt like his best chance of surviving was to just off the bridge into the water. At the end, he could see a less than faint machine targeting it's eight barrel cannons at the duo.
The tank had returned.
"They really don't care about human casualties do they?" Adrian asked blatantly as they knew jumping off would be the less suicidal choice over driving straight into the thing. Before they could even make a choice, it began firing and blasting into the bridge to knock them right off the map and replace them with a charred hole on the globe.
Nick was doing well at avoiding them but that monster had eight barrels and Nick only had two lanes on the narrow bridge. One blast took out the entire left side of the bridge and the whole thing threatened to fall into the river. With a silent prayer, Nick pulled the steer all the way to the left, causing the car to swerve in correspondence. Nickolas had intentionally sent them straight off the side.
Nick and Adrian could feel their stomachs lodge themselves into their throats and had that nausea feeling as rocks and ruble journeyed with them down into the depths below. Adrian felt bile build in his esophagus as the car just so happened to land on one of the many twisting bridges below.
He wasted no time revving the car to action and pushing full throttle and had to dodge an oncoming car, realizing that this one was a one-way in the opposite direction. He sped to the end as he saw that he was just too fast for the tank to lock onto. Hopefully, that would be the last of the beast.
They let out onto the main road on the other side and saw that they were in Chinatown. Asian square lanterns and streamers decorated the village-themed area as dusk seemed to already settle in the sky. All the buildings and stores were all made out of pure glass walls with Asian symbols and dragons danced all across the antique shops. Some, with the soothing designs of the spas to be contradicted by the fiery display of the restaurants. Pink blossom tress lay sprouted in every corner they could fit and the glossy black tiles that had for the roads that mixed with the darkening sky to give the place that authentic Chinese feel in all of it's red, orange and yellow glory.
Nick and Adrian entered with a powerful drift down the center road and the Nexus agent had no problem mimicking the action as the slower tank had to find another route to try and cut them off again.
As they zoomed by the China shops, the flaming lanterns swished with the furious winds. Nick made several turns throughout trying to lose the son of a bitch who kept right on their tail. The scenery was great and all, but if taking a gander meant the end of his life, he was fine keeping his eyes on the tiled road. Some streets were wider while others were slim back roads.
Lights flashed across shrines and fancy restaurants as they turned the shoot out into a full blown race. Adrian had fired one last shot, obliterating a glass shop while Nick tried to anticipate each and every turn. He was reaching a spit in the road that resembled a 'Y' from above and as a semi truck carrying appeared on the right side, Nick turned into the left street and zoomed into the back-road.
That one only lead to more and they were a lot harder to predict and like before, as he reached an opening, he drifted a completely three-sixty and the car following also completed the action right next to him, but right before he did so, both drivers could see the other from driving so close to each other.
Nick took the moment to get a good look at the guy who was bald and had the angry expression of a professional hitman. The other guy took the moment to put a bullet in Nick's forehead. At the last second, Adrian reached up yanked Nick's head forward as the laser busted Nick's window. He punched the gas as they boosted back down the same road and let out right as the huge semi truck was.
Nick tapped into the nitrous and one could hear the fuel steaming out as the car just barely drove around the semi truck while using the one-eighty trick to avoid the truck hitting the back of the car by swinging over to the front. As the car did the one-eighty, the nose of the truck was so very close to hammering them but the slick movements of the maneuver had just saved their lives.
Fortunately, the same couldn't be said for the pursuer behind them. He smashed straight into the pipes the truck was carrying and they poured out atop it's roof, completely demolishing the small race car.
Nick and Adrian took off as the semi truck spun out of control and the crushed car detonated from the inside out, sending a waves of smoke into the air as Nick raced down the straightaway as fast as the car would let him.
Reaching nearly three hundred miles an hour, he was far to fast for the helicopters to keep up with.
"And he's gone, Melinda," one of the pilots stated, looking over to his partner. "He is gone."
****
In this epic chair of doom, I fired the four-barrel cannon as my seat swiveled around and around so I could see exactly what my targeting systems were blasting off the map. The cars that didn't really move as they steadied to shoot were the easiest to get rid off, but the helicopters continuously swayed from side to side when taking fire. I'm just glad I didn't have to take on any jets.
The tanks ate the enemy fire as they've gotten majorly advanced over the tree years because of the money they now posses. I tried to aim for the wheels, but they were clearly armored also, they just rolled on through the flames. They were fast enough to keep up with us too.
I tried to take care of all the squat cars but they were clearly catching on that they were being rapidly shot at, making violent turns to the side and letting the tanks and helicopters do their job. I found that I was now the target and the hull of the bubble had to deflect more than one blast from Nexus.
Nothing but explosions took place on the moving battlefield and I was getting so caught up in the action, I completely didn't see the chasing storm completely over take Nexus until it blocked my vision from them in huge balls of fury.
First, it was the sound that hit me; the sound of fierce winds ripping away at the sand and the air as it screamed and howled all around us. It was then the intense earthquake that put all of its predecessors to shame and multiplied from there. I got a front row seat of the wall of raging sand begin to tower over us all like a god descending upon the earth.
"Chase, you might want to wind up your windows."
At first, I couldn't see anything but thick orange sand through the bubble and could hear the pelting of the grains of sand all over the bubble in waves upon waves of on-coming sand.
"Can you get any type of visual?" Chase asked me through the channel. I had no idea if the rest of Nexus could hear us or not. Maybe Chase wasn't able to disconnect us from them. I couldn't tell.
"Not a thing, you?"
"Nada," he replied. He was trying to steer, but couldn't make out anything other than the dark sand showing on all the windows. "Hope I don't smash into anything last second."
I flinched at a cluster of rough sand hitting the bubble then breaking apart and washing away on impact. "Just keep p r a y...." My voice trialed off at the word "praying" because it then seemed that we just washed up in the eye of the storm.
It was...oh my god.
I could now almost clearly see what was going on around me and was able to watch at least twenty different mile-wide sand twisters dance around us in every other direction. Thousands upon thousands of bolts of white lightning shot down in the blink of an eye, all in an orange, sandy haze. I didn't know wither to stare in joy or in horror as I saw helicopters spin out of control around the tornadoes before completely exploding, only to have the flames sucked away by the powerful vacuum of the twisters. Cars swerved out of control and lightning stuck them randomly and I was forced to watch them fly straight into the air by the winds like they were leaves of old-fashioned papers.
The sky was a crimson orange and sand pegged the tanks hard and one of them exploded under the pressure and was picked up by a thin cycle that rushed by. They however, rose slowly into the air because they weighed far more than their race car counterparts. As they made their way into the sky they seemed to disintegrate into more explosions the higher they went up, disappearing into the storm behind them.
"What the hell is going on out there?!" Chase screamed as more lighting scorched the sand and continually shot. "Sounds like hell."
"Looks like it too." I replied, gaping at the flashes followed by the roars of the rolling thunder. "Chase I--"
The rover began to rise on the right side, but Chase was able to veer out of the way of the twister falling just a couple of miles away from us. One shot down over to the left of us far off into the distance followed a thousand bolts of lightning and then right above us, I could see swirling clouds forming.
Looking at the rest of the Nexus army go up in flames, I feared greatly for my own life. Knowing that unlike the miniature war we had going on, there was nothing I could do to prevent a bolt of lighting to cook me alive.
The winds intensified to the point where I couldn't hear Chase anymore and his voice was amplified by a speaker, besides the muffled speech outbursts that would occasionally reach me. Lightning fired off in circles around us as if mocking us and testing us to see if we were a fit meal for the monstrous hungry cyclone dropping on top of us. I could literally see it form as it came down to claim it's prize.
I tried to scream at Chase to move to the left or right but when the rover didn't move, I knew that he heard me just as well as I could hear him; not at all. It came further and further down and there was nothing I could do but stare up at my own impending doom.
"Chase, I love you." I tried to deny admitting. "With everything I have, with everything I am, with every-Ahh!!" I screamed at the sudden movement in the rover. It ripped to the left and I could no longer see up the middle of the tornado as we drove in another direction. But it was far too late. The suction of the twister already had us locked and we already started to rise into the air.
--Cha---I---lo--ve-----you---every---thin--g-I--have---every--thing----I am---with--ev-- Was all Chase heard and all he needed to hear realizing that I was expecting to die. He looked up and saw the twister then swerved to the left.
It was violent. It was nasty. We soared through the air as we slowly circled around the baby twister and reached higher and higher. The hull of the rover was holding up really well, but I failed to notice because was incredibly busy, screaming my absolute head off.
We got closer and closer to the twister as we rose and I could see a constant repeat of what happened to the Nexus soldiers. The way that when the winds hit them, their cars went straight up into the air and their doors ripped away like most of the car already had. The force pulled them right out of the vehicle and swung around the twisters like rag dolls in a devil child's possession. Maybe a limb or two rip off in the presses as their cars or tanks smash back into them, exploding on impact.
Maybe they make it to the center of the twister, suffocating as the oxygen is just out of reach while their blood rushes to their head and they pass out as their body flies away somewhere they'll never see. The helicopter that had to immediately be torn apart under the pressure as their blades go soaring in the skies and the victims inside fly out and get chopped to pieces before they disconnect.
Lesson of the story is; this weather is damn unpredictable and anything could happen to anyone at any moment.
I felt the need to buckle my seat belt like no other in my entire life as we sailed higher into the sky and at this point, the ground wasn't even visible anymore. The control panel before fluxed out and soon, the holographic controls faded away and the soft blue glow I didn't even notice the bubble made when activated blinked out. I could tell Chase's controls were out of the picture all together and I think I heard him pound on the door that separated us.
Again, everything fell into a blizzard of dark orange sand that I couldn't possibly see through for the love of everything holy. Speaking of holy, I could have sworn I was dead and this was some sort of post-death dream before I finally pass on to the next world.
But that was when I saw the sun shine brightly in the distance, but at the same time, I could just make out entire constellations of stars just beyond the burning atmosphere above us. I looked over and saw huge sand thunderheads shoot out around us from the clouds that were...beneath us.
It was actually quite a mesmerizing view. I could see the gold rays at their purest to go with the fact that it looks like I could be able to touch outer space even though I was a couple atmospheric levels too low. There was one last layer of soft white clouds surrounding us, but it was really the huge sun in the corner of the sky that I couldn't take my eyes off of. Like I could see it's warmth, touch it's rays, and hear the birds chirping just to complete the picture.
Then we began to descend after that breath-taking moment at the highest a plane could never have taken us in the past. All I could see was the sun float higher in the sky as Chase and I fell that sinking feeling return
"Chase, this is beautiful." I said absentmindedly.
"Oh my god, Skylar, I can hear you!" he shouted. I completely forgot that the interference was literally gone with the wind. "It is amazing!"
"Chase-Chase! Oh my god—" But I was too late. "Chase I lov--" I was cut off by the heavy winds retuning and the sand washing away any sound I hoped to push across.
Tears swelled in my eyes as I banged on the bubble in frustration. Then I heard it.
--I---kn-ow--
We were heading for a straight shot into the ground through the relentless fire of the lightning bolts firing millions at a time as we raced to the bitter sand that marked our sorrow graves.
"Chase!" I cried.
--Ch---a--ce!!-- was all he heard. We were caught by the winds of another rushing twister and our direction changed drastically. In my seat, I was whipped around back and forth as if I was cake batter in a hurricane-sized blender. "Skylar I..."
Back on my side, I heard "Sky".
--lov--yo-u---to-o--
In that exact moment, we plummeted straight into a sand hill and disappeared into a cruel world of nothing but a sudden flash of everything I've done, everything I've accomplished since I set out on this mission to find my father and seek vengeance for my brother. Nexus has taken all of it away from me.
And here I am, dying because I tried to set the world straight that my father was innocent for his crimes and that all this should have never happened in the first place and then I saw nothing but pitch black. Despite all those thoughts running through my head at light speed and then some, my very last thought, my very last memory, was one thing, one word...one name.
Chase.