//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Heist Gone Wrong (Part 2) // Story: Sunset Over The Wasteland // by Thunder-Bolt //------------------------------// Sunset Over The Wasteland Written by: Thunder Bolt Chapter 6 Sunset just stared. Twilight stared right back. It was mostly the camouflage, and the gun that caught Twi off guard. That… and the fact that Sunset literally just murdered the two guards that were escorting her. But it was her! It was Sunset Shimmer! She didn’t think she’d see her again. “Sunset…” Twilight took a step towards her. Sunset lifted her shotgun back up, and stared down the barrel into Twilight’s confused look. “Prove that you’re real.” “What?” Twilight tilted her head in confusion. “Sunset, it’s me-” “PROVE IT OR I’LL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT!!!” She shouted a little too loudly. Slash nervously looked behind him. He leaned over into Sunset’s ear. “Sunset, what are you doing?” He grunted under the weight of the gas containers. Sunset’s breathing became heavy. She let out a low growl, before lowering the gun completely. “C’mon.” She made a gesture for the wives to follow. At first none of them moved, but Midnight was the first to speak up. “Guys, this is the moment we’ve been waiting on for years. Let’s go!” She ran forward past Sunset and Slash. Sweet Breeze and Violet Flower looked at each other, but came to their senses and followed. As they ran for the elevator, Slash glared at Sunset. “What the hell are you doing?” “You have a better plan?” “Yeah, I do! Let’s leave them!” “No, Twilight’s my friend.” “That’s pretty easy to believe, considering that you wanted to blow her head off a moment ago!” Slash spat. “They’re coming with us.” Sunset put blatantly. “How do you even know them?” He pressed. “Trust me on this, okay?” Slash glared more intensely, but realized they didn’t have time to argue. He let out a sigh. “Do you have any idea how much trouble we’ll be in if the Immortan catches us?” “Yeah.” Sunset answered knowingly. As Slash followed the wives to the elevator, Sunset looked back at Twilight. “Sunset?” Twilight gave her questioning look. “Join the others, I'll catch up.” She told sternly. Twilight looked unsure, and started to go to join the rest. But Sunset grabbed her shoulder. “It's good to see you again.” She said without so much as cracking a grin. Twilight nodded with a smile, and went to join the others. Sunset was now alone. Really only fifteen feet away from the elevator everyone else was waiting at, but alone with her thoughts. And her memories. “Sunset, help!” “Twilight no!” BRAKA-KA-KA-KA-KA-KA-KA-KA-KA!!! “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” Sunset cringed at the memory. Her breath got caught in her throat, but she pushed it out of her mouth. She mentally berated herself, reminding her that there were more important things to do. They had to get the hell out of here. She fast walked to where the bigger group was waiting. The elevator was almost on the way up. Nobody had said anything to each other. There was an awkward air between them all. The wives cast nervous glances down both ends of the rocky hall. Slash and Sunset kept up watchful eyes. The elevator finally got to the top. The basket was quite large, so they all fit inside without a problem. Once all were inside, Slash tugged on the rope again. The basket started to move downwards. The awkward air was replaced with one of apprehenshen. “So… what’re your names?” Slash asked suddenly. “Violet Flower.” “Midnight Corsair.” “...Sweet Breeze…” “Twilight Sparkle.” The question answered, Slash nodded to no one in particular. “Alright… I’m Slash.” Violet raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re a warboy?” Violet asked. The other girls looked at him, surprised. Sunset simply glanced back, she was going to let to let Slash handle this. “Well… not anymore.” He answered honestly. Now both of Violets eyebrows were raised. She had never heard of a rogue warboy. This was very odd indeed. All of the Immortan’s soldiers were raised from birth to be loyal to their leader. Slash was odd indeed. She wanted to know more. It was similar to how a different leader before her time ran things. Adolf Hitler, she had read about him in a book called The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich. Apparently, the man had brought death and destruction to all that stood in his way. Similar to the leader Violet was trying to escape from. A voice interrupted her thoughts. “Slash, we’re going to need a truck to get them out.” Sunset referred to the wives. “Do you have anything?” Slash nodded. “Yeah, we have a- Ah!” One of the poles suspending the containers in the air slipped from his shoulder. Fortunately, Slash managed to keep a grip on it and nothing spilled. “Lemme get that!” Midnight offered. As Slash tried to get the gas himself, Midnight picked it up from the floor herself. Slash’s widened slightly as the girl hoisted the pole over her shoulders and behind her neck, seemingly with little effort. The only thing that escaped Midnight’s mouth was a small grunt. Slash stared for a moment before turning back to Sunset. “Yeah, I used to be a truck driver before I was assigned to patrols.” He replied. “The trucks are on the other side of other side of the garage though, we’ll have to use the west entrance.” “Alright.” Sunset sighed. The basket reached the bottom of the shaft, and the worst thing that could’ve possibly happened, happened. A warboy was waiting at the bottom. Once the elevator landed, the soldier looked at group in disbelief. But Sunset was quick to act. She jumped the door of the basket, and dove at the warboy. She tackled him to the ground and covered his mouth with her hand. “Mmff! Mff!!!” His screams were muffled and went unheard. The poor warboys eyes widened in fear as Sunset drew her knife, pulled back, and plunged it into his neck. The warboys eyes became like dinner plates, as blood spilled into his throat and out his neck. The blood choked him of life as he began spasming. Sunset kept a strong grip, until the spasms died. Sighing, she drew her blood-soaked knife and hands away from the warboys face. His eyes were still locked in a soulless stare that seemed to look into the space itself. Sunset glanced up at the others. The wives, well, weren’t taking it very nicely. Sweet Breeze and Twi were trying oh so desperately to keep their breakfast in. Violet and Midnight had mortified looks on their faces. Slash didn’t have a remote trace of emotion on his face. He just stared at the body. “Let’s go. Now!” Sunset commanded. Everybody seemed to get themselves together, and got off the elevator. As Breeze passed the body, she couldn’t help but take a long look at it. “Come on Breeze…” Twi chided. Breeze looked at her and nodded. “Coming…” Slash glanced over at Sunset as they ran. “There’s another guard at the door. You’re gonna have have to blast him.” He explained. “Alright,” She acknowledged, bringing the gun to her shoulder as the group kept running. Sunset began to think of how she was going to talk to Twilight after they got out of there. Thing is… she had no how. Sunset just killed several warboys in front of Twilight, and she passed it off like it was nothing. Sure, that was an average occurrence for Sunset. But what would Twilight think? Would she think Sunset was some kind of lunatic? She did threaten to kill her. But that was out of shock, and not knowing how to deal with it. Twilight would understand, right? Right? Sunset hoped so. As the group came to the end of the hall, they slowed. Sunset halted at the corner, and signaled for everyone to crouch. Everyone did. Sunset peeked around the corner ever so slowly. She saw a guard that was in the exact same attire as the guard at the east garage entrance. She wouldn’t have been surprised if they were roommates.  She leaned over to Slash, who still had the pole held behind his neck. “I’ll take him out,” She said preparing to charge the guard. Put Slash shook his head quickly. “Uh uh, I’ll do it.” He replied and gently let down the pole and the containers to the ground. Sunset was about to argue, she didn’t want Slash using his pistol except in emergencies. But before she could, Slash had gotten up and was leaning around the corner to his bearings on the situation. He was too far away to say anything and not be heard. Slash glanced around the edge of the corridor, and eyed the guard for a moment. He gathered up what he would say. Taking in a deep breath, he cleared the end of the tunnel and walked towards the guard. The sentry looked up to see Slash approaching. He cast him a smile, glad to see an old friend. “Hey there Slash, where ya headed?” He asked in a friendly tone. Slash didn’t answer, he just kept walking towards the guard. He gave Slash a confused look. “Hey, are ya ears dead? I was askin’ where you were headed.” Slash furrowed his eyebrow as he continued to approach. “I’m sorry.” He apologized, before quickly bringing his gun at his former friends head and firing twice. The guards body fell to the floor. Slash stood there for a moment. He stared down at the body, watched the blood drizzle down from the guards head. Slash had known him in his past life. Way back when he was a truck driver, this was the face that greeted him everyday. He remembered what this guard had been like. He had been friendly, even when everyone was mean to him. He always was cracking some sort of joke, no matter how good or bad. He had been one of Slash’s closest friends when he had been a transport truck driver. And he just killed him. “Hey, Slash.” He looked over his shoulder to see Sunset gripping the pole behind her head, the wives right behind her. “Nice job, your lead now.” Sunset waited for him to take the lead. Slash had to bring himself out of his mourning and flared his nostrils with newly-found determination. “Follow me.” He ordered, moving to the submarine door and began to open it. Thunder Bolt got into the driver’s seat of Sunset’s Mustang. And waited. And waited. And waited. There. That’s what he was looking for. Three pursuit vehicles exited the large gate, and headed straight towards his car. Well, it was really Sunset’s car. But he’d give it back. Thunder estimated that he had a good thirty second head start before the vehicles could get to him. After making this calculation he immediately slammed down on the gas pedal. The engine produced a loud roar before he sped off. He pulled a hard right on the steering wheel and made like a bunny away from a pack of foxes. The Mustang was a very fast car. But it couldn’t keep pace with the nitrogen pumped engines that were in the warboys cars. Eventually, the vehicles did catch up to Thunder. He swerved about in an attempt to prevent the vehicles from getting good positioning on him. He looked back to see that a warboy was preparing to leap onto his car. Oh hell no. Just as the warboy lept, Thunder pulled another hard right, and avoided any unwanted passengers. The warboy fell, and seemed to zoom away like he was on a conveyer belt of sand. The cars were going that fast. Up until now, the pursuit had been taking place around the metal wall of the Citadels perimeter. Thunder was trying to stay in that general area, prepared to follow Sunset if she made it out with the gas. The key word being “if”. They had agreed that if she was not back outside within twenty minutes of entering, Thunder had full reason to assume she died and he was to escape by himself. However, Thunder had complete faith that it wouldn’t come to that. He just had to make sure that he held off the pursuit vehicles. CLUNK! Thunder looked up at the ceiling of the car, just in time to hear: “I’m on his car!” “Ah shit.” He muttered. Slash held his pistol out in front of him, ready to shoot any mechanics unlucky enough to find themselves behind the row of vehicles the group was currently sneaking behind. They were quite literally between a rock and a hard place. The trucks had hard metal, and the wall was made of rock. Most of the garage’s occupants were kept busy on the other side of the garage with the threat of Thunder’s ambush. The other side of the garage was almost barren. But it never hurt to be safe, especially in the wasteland. Eventually, about more than half way through the line of trucks and tankers, Slash found what he was looking for. The M35 military transport truck. It was a large transport truck that had been used as a means to carry troops to and from battles during the World Ending War. It had been heavily modified from its original form, turning it into a menacing looking machine. Slash held up a hand for everyone to stop, and looked down the space between the truck they were taking and another vehicle. Clear. He then edged along the back of the truck to the other side. He poked his head around the corner. Clear. Breathing a sigh of relief, he looked back to see Sunset and the wives waiting for him to signal that the area was clear. Slash put up a thumbs up and his mouth curled into a smile. Sunset took that as ‘all clear’, and signaled the wives to follow to the rear of the truck. Sunset and Slash quietly opened the swing doors of the truck, which revealed an M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun. It was mounted on a pole fused to the flatbed of the truck. Wasting no time, Sunset beckoned the wives to enter the rear of the truck. They obeyed. Once they all piled inside, and had gotten comfortable on the benches that flanked both sides of the flatbed, Slash and Sunset closed the doors as quietly as possible. They waited for the sound of footsteps to come to them, signaling that someone was investigating any noise they had made. None came. Breathing a sigh of relief, Sunset sneaked along the side of the truck to the passenger seat. She started to hear the pattering of running footsteps. She held her breath as a warboy ran by along the row of trucks, not even noticing her. Letting out a shaky breath, Sunset creeped to the passenger door. Seeing that Slash was already in the cabin was alleviating for her. She climbed in, and quietly closed the door. “Get in the back with the wives, until we’re outside the walls.” Slash ordered. Sunset, seeing no reason to argue that, climbed in the back with the wives. She put a finger up to her lips, signalling for them to be quiet. They nodded in conformation. Sunset noticed that Twilight was holding Sweet Breeze in a hug. Not surprising, Sunset thought, this whole escapade was a huge change in pace for them. They had probably only dreamt of escaping during the time they held captive here. It was likely that they had never actually believed they could leave. Up front, Slash gunned the engine. The wheel had been left on the steering axis carelessly, probably by a younger crew. With a blast of fumes from it’s tall exhaust pipe, the truck pulled out of the space it had been parked in and turned right. Headed to the exit of the garage. Slash had to turn left into the main road that linked all the rows into something like a parking lot. Only difference was that this parking lot was dug out from a plateau. The truck then made another right out of the exit into the blazing sun of the desert. It opened up into a wide dirt road that was shrinked in size as it moved past the two other plateaus, and approached the gate. It was a straight road, no curves at all. Slash guided the vehicle to the gate, passing the villagers that were camped out beside the road. Or rather below the road, since the dirt had been piled up in order to create an elevated path. The transport slowed to a stop in front of the gate. A guard ran up to the driver’s door and looked up at the truck’s driver. Slash looked down at the guard. As the sentry was about to ask what was in the truck, he suddenly stopped mid sentence and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Slash?” He questioned. “Yep.” Slash confirmed. “What are you- I thought you were a patrol driver!?” He exclaimed in confusion. “Yeah, but they needed someone to drive the transport,” Slash pointed his thumb back at the garage. “So they got me, since there was no one else.” He explained. The guard seemed to accept the explanation, to which Slash was grateful. “I got a whole load of warboys in here, ready take down that intruder.” Slash answered the guards question before he even asked. “Alright, go get ‘em!” He encouraged. He gave a hard slap to the metal which made up the flatbed covering the flatbed, producing a loud CLANG. That wasn’t good. That slap to the metal was a common warboy gesture for: Kill ‘em all. It was quick sign of encouragement from the guards to the warboys, it was even thought of as good luck by some. And it was considered rude for the warboys in the vehicle to not return the favor. For a split second Slash panicked. But in the next second, he gathered himself and looked back into the holding area. “Bang on the metal!” He called out in hushed importance. The wives gave him a funny look, even Sunset raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Anybody home?” The guard questioned, in an insulted manner. He started to walk around to the back of the truck, to see why they hadn’t returned the action. “Now! He’s gonna find you!” Slash demanded. Realizing that they were about to be found out, all of the wives, and Sunset, started rapping on the metal as hard as they could. Twilight had to free her arms from the hug she was giving Breeze, but more than made up for it by making the most noise. “Ah, there we are!” The guard said contently, coming back around to the front. “Yeah, they’re a bit riled up, itching to get out and fight,” Slash explained. “Gate?” “Yeah.” The guard answered. He turned to the workers who were manning the giant cranks that opened the giant doors. He cupped his hands around his mouth “Open up, we got a transport coming through!” Immediately, the workers turned the handholds of the cranks, resulting in the large gate splitting inward as it opened. As soon as it was wide enough, Slash shifted into drive, stepped on the gas and drove forward. He honked the horn, causing the workers on the door to let several yells and hollers as the truck moved into the open Wasteland. Sunset got up from the bench and moved to the front cabin. She didn’t sit down, instead she grabbed ahold of of the passenger seat and leaned on it as she looked out into the dry landscape. “We need to find Thunder.” She put simply. Slash grunted in annoyance. “I know that.” A large part of Sunset wanted to say that she was just trying to keep things on task. But knowing Slash, it would just lead to an argument. And that was the LAST thing they needed right now. Slash guided the truck along the fence, in search of the former pilot. As they continued to drive, they started to hear the sound of car engines approaching. Around the next bend, Thunder’s car sped into view. At first Sunset was relieved that they had found him. But that relief turned to dread as she realized Thunder was driving along the fence like they were. And they were going to crash. “TURN GOD DAMMIT!!” She shouted. However Slash had already started turning the wheel. The truck was going extremely fast, and as Thunder’s car drove by unharmed, the truck started to tip from the g-forces of the turn. “Crap crap crap crap crap crap!” Slash gritted his teeth as he yanked the wheel in the other direction, just barely managed to get the truck back on all four wheels. As soon as he did, he braked hard. The truck slid across the sand a few feet before coming to a stop. Sunset and Slash were breathing heavily. They stared straight ahead for a moment before Sunset turned around. The wives were looking amongst themselves in confusion. As Sunset turned to them, Violet looked up at her from the bench. “What just happened?” Sunset calmed her breathing to answer. “We had to swerve to avoid a collision. We’re good.” That seemed to calm Violet, and she turned to the other breeders to relay the message. Sunset turned back into the cabin. She looked at Slash who was still breathing heavily and kept staring forward. “Hey.” Sunset reached a hand down and shook his shoulder. That seemed to knock the warboy out of his stupor. “Yeah, yeah, I know…” Slash reached a hand down to the shifter, and pressed down on the gas. The truck lurched forward to the left to chase down Thunder’s pursuers. Although the pace of his breathing had returned to normal levels, he continued to stare out in front, his eyes still extremely wide. Sunset picked up on it. She sat down on the passenger seat. “You okay?” She questioned. Slash nodded robotically, his eyes still snapped wide open. Sunset’s eyes went half-lidded with a look of skepticism. “Bullshit.” She poked Slash’s shoulder again as he drove. “Come on, what is it.” “Well…” Slash explained. “It’s just been a while since I’ve done something like that.” His eyes became more relaxed as he spoke. “Guess I’ve been pretty used to how mellow the patrols are.” Sunset blinked. She really hadn’t expected that. But warboys were crazy characters, and anything they did was unexpected. It was something she had learned in her time roaming the Wasteland. Though, Slash was quite different. He seemed to get annoyed at a lot of things, but put his mind in the present at all times. He liked things to go according to plan. Now that she thought about it, that could be why he had tried holding up an argument in the citadel when she had told the wives to come with them. She glanced out on the road, realizing they were fast approaching Thunder’s car. “Get on the machine gun.” Slash ordered suddenly. Sunset was ripped from her thoughts and looked at him for a moment. “The machine gun?” “You heard me.” Slash confirmed, keeping his eyes on path ahead of them. “But, I don’t even know how to-” “I’ll talk you through it.” Slash said quickly. “We don’t have time. Were almost right behind the pursuiters.” Indeed, the truck’s engine was steadily pulling the vehicle closer to the rear of the cars pursuing Thunder. They were only about 50 meters away. Realizing there wasn’t time for arguing, Sunset got up and slowly walked to the machine gun welded onto the bed. It was a Browning .50 caliber machine gun. Sunset had seen plenty of these in the past, fixed or welded onto burnt-out tanks from the war. Or mounted on the many cars they had come across. Again she had experience firing such a weapon. But, then again, there’s a first time everything. The wives glanced at her as she looked the gun over. “How do I load it?” Sunset shouted. Slash looked back into the flatbed as the truck pulled closer to the pursuit vehicles. “Do you see a two small buttons that are parallel to each other, near the handles?” Sunset looked, spotting two buttons that were indeed parallel to each other. “Yeah!” “Push those together, and pull up.” Slash explained. She pinched the two buttons, and pulled. The cover for the where the ammunition belt was supposed to go lifted forward away from her. Sunset really wanted to get this done ASAP. She could see they were fast approaching the vehicles. At the rate they were going, they would reach the vehicles, and their element of surprise would be compromised. Sunset kept the cover up, and fast-walked back to the cabin. “Let me take the wheel.” Sunset ordered. “What? No, you need to-” Sunset turned backwards and leaned against the console, looking into Slash’s eyes. “Shut up and listen, at the rate I was going, our element of surprise would’ve been out the window.” She quickly explained. “You know how to load the thing…” She suddenly pulled Slash from the driver’s seat, grabbed his shoulders, and shoved into the flatbed. He landed on his rear, uttering an ‘oof’. “...so load it.” She finished, sitting down and taking control of the truck. Slash grunted and looked up. He was about to try and challenge Sunset, but Violet got in his way. She put a hand up to his chest and applied pressure. “Hey,” She glared. “Load the damn gun.” Slash wasn’t sure why, but the way Violet stared him down made his eyebrows raise slightly. He backed off. He didn’t know what it was about Violet that made him do so. She just had this no-BS; all business look. And it struck him hard in his soul. He immediately turned and started loading the weapon. Twilight leaned over as he worked and spoke to Violet. “How did you get him to do that?” Violet smirked, and glanced at Midnight Corsair. “I’ve had to deal with this idiot for years.” Midnight looked at her, and picked up on who she was referring to. “Hey!” She retaliated. “Shut up.” Violet’s smirk grew even more. “Don’t even try.” She chided. Midnight folded her arms, and furrowed her eyebrows in frustration. “Shurt urp.” She mumbled. Violet snorted in amusement. Slash worked quickly. He first grabbed a case of ammo off the floor. He attached the case to the latch that held it in place next to the chamber. He grabbed the belt and placed the first bullet in the chamber. He then slammed the cover down with loud CHUNK. He then grabbed the charging handle and pulled it back. Slash let the handle spring forward, priming the weapon to fire. He made sure the safety was off, and then ran back into the cabin. “Hey, it’s ready.” He pointed a thumb behind him. “Alright,” Sunset replied. She got up, and moved around Slash. He took the wheel. Sunset grabbed the handles with both hands in preparation to fire. Slash maneuvered the truck around the three pursuit vehicles. He pulled down on the truck’s horn cord, producing an Earth-shattering HOOOOOOOOONNNK!!! “Yeah! Woohoo! Give it to ‘em!” Warboys riding on the cars shouted in delight as Slash kept driving. He pulled alongside one of the cars and leaned out the window. “Hey!” He shouted, catching the attention of a warboy riding in the rear of a roaring muscle car. “Yeah, what?” The goon responded. “I’m gonna pull ahead and land some warboys on him!” The other man nodded and grinned maniacally. “Go! Destroy him and bring forth the carcass of his machine!” He shouted. “Yeah!” Slash replied in maniacal glee. Slash then pressed further down on the gas pedal and sped ahead. He moved past the pursuit cars, and pulled aside Thunder’s car. Thunder glanced up, spotting Slash in the driver’s seat. He blinked, as Slash glanced over at him, smiled, and gave a thumbs up. Thunder just stared as Slash pulled the truck around in front of Sunset’s Mustang. “Uh…” Thunder stared with a deadpan expression on his face. “...the hell is he doing?” All he could see was the rear of the transport, driving right in front of his car. Inside, Sunset braced herself for the coming onslaught of bullets that was coming. She crouched, lining up her eyes with the guns sights. She calmed her breathing, steadying her movements so that she could focus on firing. The wives had been moved to the very back of the transport. They huddled together, keeping as far from the line of fire as possible. Midnight stood at the double doors, waiting for Sunset’s signal… Twilight looked up at Sunset, then Midnight. She knew what was coming next. It was time to face the music. “OPEN IT NOW!!!” Midnight threw open the doors and immediately dove for the floor, gritting her teeth as she covered her head. Sunset fired the gun, producing a steady THU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU!!! Sunset gnashed her teeth together, squinting her eyes as the machine gun shook back and forth. She had never felt such incredible power from a weapon before. It was exhilarating. The warboys eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as bullets ricocheted of the cars. Most dove for cover, but a few unlucky soldiers were peppered with projectiles. As she kept shooting, Sunset steadily aimed the gun at the driver of the car closest to Thunder Bolt. The bullets tore through the drivers head, and due to their size, completely obliterated his brain and skull. Nothing but a bunch of gray matter and bone shards remained of his head. The body rolled of the right, moving the steering wheel in the same direction. The car veered away, rolling right into the path of the second closest car. The driver didn’t have time to react as the second vehicle ran right into the side of the first. The force of the crash flipped the second car into the air, before it crashed on the other side of the first car on the roof. As the three remaining cars drove away, the second car exploded in a wave of fire. In turn, the first car exploded into nothing but a mess of ash and twisted metal. Meanwhile, the third car had pulled up and was returning fire. Sunset barely had time to dive for the wall in order to press herself as hard as she could to it. She gritted her teeth together as bullets flew past and landed on the back end of the transport. “AAAAAAAAHHH!!” The wives screeched as projectiles were just barely missing. Midnight was still pinned to the ground and was still covering her head with her hands. She opened her squeezed-shut eyes for a moment to see Sunset pinned to the wall as bullets continued to shoot past. “What do we do!?” She shouted desperately. At this moment, Midnight was fearing for her life. She was naturally a very stubborn individual who talked a big game. But this was the first time she was getting a real taste of a Wasteland battle. Sunset looked down at the woman, a terrified look plastered to her face. Sunset glanced behind her to see that her shotgun was lying on the flatbed, rattling slightly from the movement of the truck. Her eyes widened as she realized what her next course of action should be. “Toss me my shotgun!” She ordered. Midnight looked to her left to see the shotgun on the ground. As quickly she could, she grabbed the gun and passed to her other hand. She quickly slid the gun to Sunset. She grabbed it, and pinned herself to the wall just in time for another flurry of bullets whizzed by. “STAY STRONG!” Violet shouted over the noise. She pulled Twilight and Breeze tighter in the huddle in the corner of the flatbed. Once the onslaught of bullets had stopped, she dove from the wall to the floor. She slid until she was just barely over the edge of the rear entrance. However, she witnessed an odd sight when she peered outside with the shotgun ready to fire. The third car wasn’t pursuing. In fact, it had stopped completely. It was like it had stopped pursuing altogether and let the transport speed away. The car continued to shrink in size as the two vehicles drove away from the citadel. Sunset tilted her head to the side as she lay on the edge of the door frame. “What?” She called out in confusion. Thunder saw the doors open, and his widened as he saw Sunset at the helm of the machine gun. As she opened fire on the cars pursuing just behind him, he instinctively ducked his head. But after realizing that all of the bullets were flying over his car, he relaxed slightly. He looked behind to see the car closest to him veer to the right and caused the second closest car to crash, flip over it, and explode. The wreck got smaller as the remaining three vehicles drove away. Thunder locked his eyes on the path ahead of him. He felt his muscles tense as the sound of a roaring engine met his ears. He looked out to the left just in time to see the third car pull up next to him. A warboy on the rear platform of the car started firing an assault rifle at the truck. Thunder could hear the pings and pangs of bullets stitching holes in the transport. “Oh hell no…” His nostrils flared as he grabbed his Auto Mag from his holster. Without hesitating, he rested his shooting arm on his left arm, which was managing the steering wheel. He took careful aim out the car window at the shooter as he reloaded. He fired once. A miss. The shooter heard the shot and looked to his right. His eyes grew wide as he saw Thunder holding up the pistol. But the shock was short lived as Thunder fired again, the bullet striking the warboy square in the chest. “Gurgh!” He fell backwards as the force of the impact knocked him off the rear of the car. His body tumbled onto the sand. Thunder’s eyes locked onto another warboy trying to climb from the front passenger seat, onto the rear to get the rifle. Again, Thunder adjusted his aim to him and fired twice. Both bullets were met with metal. They both missed. Thunder mentally berated himself for firing an unnecessary extra bullet. He really couldn’t do things like that. The rule he always tried to follow was to fire one bullet at a time, and try not to go nuts on the trigger. It was extremely important to conserve resources as possible. The warboy continued to climb onto the rear. Thunder glanced out the front to the path the transport was following, which in turn Thunder was following. He turned back, surprised to see that the warboy was crawling on the rear, going for the rifle. “Nope…” He whispered, as he fired. The bullet struck the warboy in the head, shooting gray matter out the other side if his head. His body fell limp. Thunder let out a sigh, of both relief, and getting in air. He had holding in a breath to steady his shot. He remembered he had fired four shots, which meant he had three left. He looked back to the left, just in time to see the other car ram into his. “AH!” The force of the impact made Thunder lose his bearings for just a moment. But as he regained a feel on his surroundings, he realized that the other driver was forcing his vehicle against the Mustang. Immediately taking control of the wheel, Thunder turned his car against the other car, pushing it in the direction. He looked up into the eyes of the driver. They locked together for a moment. In that moment, their eyes said one thing to the other. “I’m going to kill you.” However, Thunder was quicker to do so. He pointed his AutoMag through the window causing the driver’s eyes grew wide. “No!” Was what he managed to shout before his head was thrown back from the force of a bullet passing through it. As the driver’s body fell over limp the steering wheel, his foot lifted off the gas pedal. The car veered away, slowed, and stopped as the transport and the Mustang drove away, leaving the citadel in the dust. Meanwhile… Jawsnapper continued to wriggle and squirm as the knife continued to make the same scrapping noises that he’d been hearing for the past week. Then, just when was about to give out, he heard the heavenly sound metal landing on metal. The handcuff chain had been broken. His eyebrows raised up in surprise. He brought them around so he could look at them. He twisted and turned his shoulders, loosening them from being cooped up in the trunk of the Challenger. Without missing a beat, Jaw positioned his body to be vertical to the trunk of the car. As hard as he could, he slammed his legs against the trunk. Nothing. Again, and again, and again he kicked at the trunk. Only with one final kick was he able to get the trunk to fly open. Sunlight poured inside, blinding him for a moment. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he crawled out, getting a feel for the ground. Once his eyes adjusted completely, he looked around. He found he was standing by the cliff he had been knocked out on. He turned around, the citadel coming into his field of view. Without hesitating, he started running along to edge of the cliff back to the citadel.