Chapter 86: 4.03 – Hot pursuit

Leona flew across the bay full thrust, pondering about the comparative morality of superheroing.

 

“It’s my duty,” she whispered to herself.

 

This is what being a superhero means. Sometimes life isn’t fair.

 

Keeping your identity secret certainly isn’t easy, either.  Even if someone dies and you want to cry, you have to remember that life isn’t made to be easy.

 

Leona at least had been able to help people who were in dire need. This mattered most.

 

Part of her mind considered the matter of Sarah. She knew she was going to be late because of how things were paying out.  Regret filled her that the circumstances would keep them from snuggling a little before class like they sometimes managed to do just before the day started.

 

The rush of the wind across her face and body helped to clear her head and mitigate the exhaustion she’d just earned in her fight against the fire and time. She twisted and angled towards the bridge where she witnessed the chase ongoing. It was crossing the Glass Bridge as Kirby had indicated. 

 

The car they were pursuing was already toward the middle of the bridge, but ‘car’ was something of a misnomer where this vehicle was concerned. It looked more like a tank actually rather than a generic civilian car.  It even had a ram prow on its front and armored plates covering its windows.  It was just exactly what one would expect to have been constructed for the purpose of mowing down legions of zombies.

 

Lightning sizzled and rippled across a black vehicle tricked out to the hilt.  Green tech-looking circuits grew through its chassis like strange veins.  The headlights were shining brightly and they shone far brighter than standards would.  Honestly, it looked like some kind of a strange alien infection of a tech-based species of someone’s family car.  It even had peculiar gull wing door-like wings spreading to either side, but assuming it could fly, Aurora could only wonder why it wasn’t doing so.

 

It smashed into a car, sending it towards the edge of the bridge with an abnormal horsepower.

 

Hoping there hadn’t been too many of these sorts of incidents already when she was occupied, she swooped in and banked low over it.  The arcs of lightning surged, bouncing off her shield.  That lighting felt numbed her slightly each time it struck.  She tried to warp her aura around it to take it off the road, but the lightning interfered.  The numbing made the job impossible.

 

She reconsidered and created a mitt-like structure to try to soften its momentum, or at least to nudge it back.  It scraped against the guardrail beside it as she managed to nudge it over.  That paid off, thankfully.  It hit rail after rail, and they folded repeatedly creating a massive obstruction before the car.  Finally the mass became impassable and the car slowed.

 

Aurora shot a look over her shoulder back along the road, and thankfully there weren’t any other motorists in the vicinity in danger.  While her attention was away, the car rammed something into the pavement and hurdled over the barrier it had created with its momentum.

 

“Shit!” Aurora yelped, and zoomed after it.  The car was extremely armored. Direct attacks would likely yield no results.  An idea occurred to her when she considered the biggest weakness all cars had no matter how armored they may be.  THE TIRES!

 

She grinned.  “Alright, let’s do this!” Lay a bed of nails in front of the vehicle for a good distance using her halo construction power, she considered for what might happen if it were to jump over it, though that wasn’t likely considering that it would have very little time to react to her stratagem. For good measure, she created a ramp just past the nails and twisted it so the thing would be upturned.  With any luck, it would land on its back, and assuming it got through the nail carpeting, this would deal the finishing blow.

 

Assuming that played out she might create a strugure quickly around it to keep it pinned down while she investigated.

 

She had not long at all to wait to see what the results of her quick plans would be.  The torque applied by her vehicular opponent or its driver caused the back end to swing around.  That was far faster than a normal person could react, certainly.  Her backup plan however went off flawlessly even if its tires weren’t punctured somehow.

 

It skidded into the ramp she created and flipped, twisting midair like an olympic athlete.  Thinking quickly, or rather reacting based on her plan, she generated the barriers around where it would land.  The calculation wasn’t too difficult.  She used the barrier to force traffic to move around while she was creating it and spreading it out to accommodate the shape and bulk of the strange vehicle.

 

When the vehicle landed, it hit the barriers, but she was in for yet another shock.  Still weak from her earlier ploys, it still crashed directly through her barriers.  It spun as it skidded however onto its roofs.  It was a combination of its nature and the momentum that broke it free, however in this situation, it might spin its wheels uselessly.  Aurora flitted over it, moving ahead.

 

She wasn’t done, since its velocity was barely slowed.  Even in this condition it still made its escape, albeit with very little dignity assuming it had any sense of it.  A driver certainly would be embarrassed.  Aurora got more creative and created a speed bump and then another and another.  It was a repeating of the same tactic, and every bump did impact its inertia over time.  When it neared the end of its kinetic energy, she created another set of barriers identical to the previous ones.  This time, robbed of its speed, it was confined successfully.  She pulled the barriers tightly around it like a vice to keep it from doing any other strange hops, but not only that in case it had a passenger, keeping them from leaving and running was the next logical step.

 

There was no resistance from the vehicle as the police caught up, their lights strobing. The sounds of their sirens wailing had been going nonstop, but they simply couldn’t keep up with this opponent.  The police left their cars and swiftly blocked all the lanes, blocking traffic except for a single lane.  Cones were placed as some started directing traffic, but some approached her and the scene of the crime.

 

Aurora wondered if she should wait.  Did she need to do anything else now that she stopped the perp?  “Should I keep them locked down or would you like to make an arrest immediately?” she yelled down.

 

“Maybe it would be best to make sure the bridge is cleared of wreckage.”

 

One of the officers spoke, “We can’t stop traffic on the bridge, Ma’am. If you don’t mind, though, we’d appreciate it if you’d stick around, just in case.”

 

A second spoke up, “We just picked up the pursuit. Detective Kirby’s car got nudged by the driver. If you can wait a bit until he shows, we’ll get things settled.”

 

*sweat drops* Crap!  Aurora sighed softly. “It’s my duty.” She certainly would be receiving a reprimand for this.  This was another thing that happened regularly to a child superhero.  This wasn’t fair either.

 

She waited, her wings flapping as she soaked in the sun to recover from her exertions.

 

Detective Kirby pulled up and he threw open his door, jumping out. His vehicle had sustained some damage.  The side of it was dented.  He didn’t have any difficulty opening the door, at least.  The strobe topping his car was flashing.  “Hey, Aurora.  You did a service for us today.  This was a pretty crazy scenario.  I’m sorry I couldn’t forewarn you about what was going on.  Thanks for waiting.  If you’d give me a report on this thing, that’d help speed things up a bit.”

 

He turned his attention to the officers at the scene and barked orders. “Keep your weapons trained on that car.  That thing’s got more tricks than any other escape vehicle I ever saw in my whole career.  What a headache.

 

Returning his attention to Aurora, he continued, ”Firing at its tires did absolutely nothing and we had only a fraction of a moment to even try before it rocketed past.  Honestly, the police were nothing but flies against this thing.  We don’t have the horsepower to match someone with this kind of tech. Just be careful, everyone!”

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The police who followed him over drew their weapons and trained them on the vehicle and others reacted similarly.

 

“All right, no sense in delaying this.  Please open the thing slowly,” he asked.

 

Aurora nodded as he put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a comradely squeeze.  She responded quickly, “Just one door first.” She opened the door facing the police on this side, making sure all other sides were barricaded tightly.  What would come out from this strange alien-like car?

 

Would it be a META?

 

She waited while Kirby drew his own revolver and approached the door slowly.  The moment he approached, the door creaked and it flew off its hinges.  There certainly was a driver.  Aurora had considered the possibility that it was remotely controlled, but maybe this thing was some kind of an escape vehicle, after all.  She was too slow to spare Kirby from the impact of the door slamming into him.  He flew backward and blood flew.

 

Out from the vehicle stepped a big and clunky-looking robot.  It had to have obviously damaged the car’s interior to be able to fit.  It spread its arms and started making a warbling noise, and the police opened fire instantly, yelling.

 

The robot was incredibly strange.  Considering the high tech vehicle it was driving, it had strange large orange eye-like apparatuses on its human-shaped head… well, the little one was.  There was a huge yellow-white one that looked like it had a different function. The robot’s chassis was red to brownish with another orange circular node on its abdomen.  The codpiece was large below its torso and its arms were long.  A strange white skeleton-like structure showed beneath the armoring and its legs were designed similarly.  Even though it was big, it was sleek rather than bulky like a huge-type.  Where a mouth would be there was an empty jaw and its white spine was slightly visible.

 

Aurora whistled low, worrying for Kirby.  An officer rushed to his side and hauled the door off him, but he was quite out cold or worse. 

 

Was this thing armed with guns? Lasers?  Aurora wondered what she was dealing with here.  She didn’t need to have to dodge bullets able to go anywhere near as fast as the car itself did. Her barrier probably wouldn’t withstand hits like that any better than her constructions did.

 

She created constructions on her arms, making blades as she walked towards the robot past the ring of officers.  Focusing, she made the things as sharp as they could be.  This wasn’t exactly the best time to experiment, since she’d never done this before, but she swept in, using her wings to burst forward at a high velocity.  One of the officers was still firing on the machine.  The bullets bounced off it and several struck her shield, bouncing off it.  In that way they were similar in that they were very bulletproof.

 

When she saw its skeleton, she thought those things might be somewhat vulnerable if she could precisely strike and sever its limbs through those open joints.  However, there were a series of hoses that could be targeted as well if that failed.  If it was hydraulically powered, reducing the fluid in its systems could reduce its potential power.

 

The robot swung at Aurora the moment she came into range, moving with the swift that only a machine could manage.  It was a very reactionary and rapid movement.  The blow was a downward swipe rather than a horizontal strike and it was powerful enough to create an inch-deep pothole in the concrete, demonstrating its metallic might.

 

Aurora swept her arms at it and due to her inexperience with blades, she only managed to crease its metal while she evaded with her maneuverability and agility.  It swung instantly yet again, and she continued to dodge as she swiped at its hoses and joints, however she was unable to get a clean hit on it aside from the first attack which had done very little damage.

 

She cursed beneath her breath and considered on the fly literally what she should do next.  After a few strikes gaining her nothing against this robot, she decided that she might be able to withstand a hit from it, and doing so might leave it open for a swift retaliation.

 

She intercepted one of its strikes instead of dodging, amping up her field a bit as she caught its limb.  As expected, the force was enough to force her down to a knee.  She thrust up with her free arm with her construction blade and her gambit paid off, even though she was already aching from taking the full brunt of its strength.  She managed to slice through several of the hoses connected to the arm which had slammed her down.

 

It started warbling, expressing a mechanical alarm as its arm fell limp.  Aurora smiled.  Hydraulic indeed.  She was a very clever angel who paid her attention to her science lessons.  Her self-satisfaction was interrupted when it kicked at her, compensating for the loss of its right limb.  Despite the ache throughout her body, she was able to dodge the strike easily since its legs didn’t move anywhere near as quickly as its arms were designed to.

 

Aurora danced behind it, light on her feet and with shocking precision considering her skill-level in such weapons, she managed to slice one of the leg hoses.  After she successfully severed its hamstring if you considered it to be the equivalent of one, she thrust her wings and slammed into it, pushing it onto its front now that it was off balance.  With only one leg it would have had to hobble on a single limb and keeping its balance now was impossible.

 

She smiled grimly as she sliced the hose on its remaining good leg and watched as it started to flail uselessly.  It could do some damage with its panicked thrashing around.  Its good arm cracked the cement as it searched for some advantage.  Nothing seemed to compute.  Aurora constructed a vice and secured it, pinning that good arm to its side.  It was too dangerous to approach.

 

She heaved a sigh as it shuddered and groaned, fighting her, but it wasn’t able to move.  One of the officers standing by approached her and the robot.  He stared for a long moment and then looked at the car, peering into the interior. 

 

“Shit…” he muttered as he walked over and started searching it.

 

Kirby was helped to his feet moments later and blood was dripping from an arm.  His face was kind of wounded too.  Aurora rushed over to him and put her hands on him as he spoke, “We got a report about something like this…” He sighed as Aurora activated her healing wave technique on him.  It rippled through his body and he let out a soft scream as his arm set itself.  

 

He went on as though he was used to this kind of a situation, “A robot ‘out of the thirties to the fifties’ walked into a shop.  Shit, it sounds like a joke, doesn’t it?  It walked in, wrecked up the place and then stole a car by ‘morphing into it’.  I’m glad you got here, Aurora.  I’m not sure we could’ve done a thing against this monstrosity--”

 

Suddenly the tires of the car started spinning and its engines revved.  Aurora stared at it in shock.  Was this robot some kind of a decoy?  This thing was remotely controlled? Or was the robot doing this somehow?

 

Despite the frighteningly powerful noise coming from its engine, it still couldn’t go anywhere while on its roof.

 

“This freaking car’s haunted!” The cop who was inspecting the inside declared.

 

Kirby shrugged at Aurora, looking at her.  “It’s my guess that the robot is still partly in there, mind-wise.  If you thought it was being controlled by the robot, maybe the car is the main body now, not that I know a freaking thing about these matters.” He clasped his previously injured hand and arm which was still caked in his blood to his face.  “Anyhow, let’s leave it to the actual experts.  We’ll have some come and get this thing investigated, dismantled, and secured.  How’d the fire situation go?”

 

Aurora shook her head, sadly. “I think it went well, but I can’t be sure of that.  The fireman I spoke with said I’d likely gotten everyone out, but you never know.  I can’t help but be anxious about the matter.” She smiled sadly, stepping back with a sigh, showing that the fight had taken a toll on her like the earlier fight against the fire.

 

At that moment, her communicator beeped and signaled Aurora that she had some sort of a message.  Kirby looked right at her breasts where she kept it and his lips twisted wryly. “That message is probably important. I’d check it.”

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