Top Gear X

Author's note: My first attempt at a multi part story. As always author's love reviews. Comment away, and heck provide suggestions as this story is still in progress. Yes Illyana is in a supporting role, but oh how nice to see our girl in action.

Part 3: Hell drive

The tank emerges from the portal directly onto the road. The turret starts to swing back and forth as the terrain is examined. The road appears to be on an over grown grassy field with scattered oak like trees. The sky is a pale shade of green with a few scattered clouds. Interestingly, there is no sun in the sky which results in no shadows. The light appears to come from the sky itself (how odd). Off in the far distance a dense dark green forest can be seen. The road travels in that direction. The tank guns the engine and begins to drive down the road. After a few seconds the Aston Martin emerges from the portal and follows the tank. After a few more seconds the recon vehicle emerges and also follows after the other vehicles.

The road and the surroundings are slightly damp. The road is roughly one and a half times the width of the tank so passing will be difficult if the tank is uncooperative. The road is not muddy but not much dust is being kicked up. The road is in good shape, well it was in good shape before the tank starts creating two rather deep compressed tracks in the ground.

Clarkson finds himself driving over the now roughened road, diesel exhaust fills the air, small clumps of dirt are being flung into the air preventing him from following closely as he does not want the dirt bits falling on the car or getting in the passenger compartment. The tank accelerates to a blazing 35 MPH as Clarkson fumes.

"Didn't quite think this though" mutters Clarkson. He keys the mike to broadcast his utterances to the other two.

Clarkson radios "Hammond, is that as fast as you can go? I'm still in first gear."

Hammond radios "That's an affirmative. She's more of an endurance runner then a sprinter".

Clarkson radios "Mate, you tank is slowing then a constipated ox. Move over a bit and let me take the lead, I'm choking on diesel fumes back here".

Hammond looks at the camera with a slightly exasperated expression, "That didn't take long, Jeremy is already bored and has started to complain".

Hammond radios "OK, I'll angle over to the right a bit so you can pass on the left".

The tank edges over to the right and slows down to 15 MPH. The Aston Martin swings to the left and passes the tank. Richard grins and sounds the tank's horn just after the car passes the tank. A massive air horn blast shakes the air, sounding like an oncoming train.

The sound obvious startles Clarkson and the Aston Martin weaves from side to side. Clarkson can be seen to cringe and scream "AAAH" and Yana is heard swearing in Russian "Чтоэто, черт возьми!"

Clarkson bellows into the radio "HAMMOND! By all that's holy, what the hell was that"?!

The scene splits, showing Hammond on one side and May one the other. May is laughing hysterically. Hammond continues to grin.

Hammond radios "Train air horn mate, one of the mods I've had done to the tank. I figure that it will help scare off some of the local baddies. What's wrong, did you navigator spill some nail polish"?

Yana looks quite cross, turns her head to look back at the tank and spits something in Russian "Так вы думаете,лак для ногтейсмешно,адавайте посмотрим, каквам нравитсяваш танкрозовый".

Clarkson radios "Don't think she's happy with you mate. And apart from now being partially deaf I think you just discovered my own personal brown note. I fear I've soiled myself. Please don't do that again, please...".

Things settle down and the little convoy continues to drive, rather slowly, down the road. The road starts to veer to the left and the still distant forest can now be seen to be on the right hand side of the road. The scene shifts to Hammond who's upper torso still protruding from the turret hatch. Hammond pats the turret top.

Yea the old girls rather slow, but just the thing for fight. However the ride is a bit rough. There is a reason tankers wear this kind of headgear, you are forever bouncing your head off of something inside the tank due to the ride. And well... it's a tank so there's not a lot of soft spots. You'd think that something this big would have lots of room but there's not a lot of empty volume. It's mostly filled with guns, ammo and people. Jeremy tells me that the old Soviet Union actually only assigned tanks crewmen of my size; but coming from Jezza I think that might be a bit of an exaggeration". Authors note, in fact it was true. Starting with the T-55 soviet tank crews were restricted to a max height of 5'10.

"But the tracks should allow us to procedure across all but the steepest or muckiest conditions". Hammond faced takes on a contemplative look. "I like it mucky, but not too mucky. Give the old girl something to roll around in".

The scene now shifts to James. James is scanning the terrain and occasionally looking behind the recon vehicle, he talks as he scans.

"Jeremy is basically confined to the road, while the both of us can go all terrain anytime we want. This allows us the ability to maneuver at speed while Jezza can really only drive on the road at speed. Go off-road and that car will likely break within a mile due to the lack of ground clearance".

A sharp road bump rocks him from side to aid and he ends up banging his helmet off the back of the 50 cal machine gun.

"Ouch, damn it. The ride is rough, the suspension is hard, which is surprising considering most American cars have ridiculously soft suspensions. Another complaint is the dimensions of the boot (that's trunk for you yanks), it's really quite small after you've jammed 6 blokes with full combat kit in it, roomy this thing is not".

The scene shifts back to Clarkson who starts talking to the camera while glancing at the road. "As expected, satnav doesn't work. Keeps thinking we're somewhere in Belgium. Allow me to demonstrate".

Jeremy reaches forward and turns on the satnav. The satnav display shows the city of Brussels. . A female voice begins saying "You are going in the wrong way, turn 180 degrees and drive back 10 mile, repeat you are going the wrong...". Jeremy turns off the satnav.

"I hope she doesn't know something I don't. The radios not much better. There is only one station and it appears to only have Stalin speeches from the 1950s". Jeremy turns on the radio, a Russian voiced can be heard" Вскоре капиталистические общества рухнет. К 1990 году весь мир будет советский ...". Yana translates, "Soon the capitalist societies will crumble. By 1990 the entire world will be soviet...".

Clarkson continues "Rubbish, ash bin of history with that lot. Enough of that, let's move on to a few brief facts".

"Top Gear is not only the most watched car show on earth, it also happens to be the most watched car show in the multiverse. Odin himself has been know to wear a I am the Stig eye patch from time to time and we all know that the Stig must be a god somewhere. I've been told that there is a world where this show is actually worshiped and the presenters are considered deities. I'm apparently some sort of bumbling Allfather, not quite all knowing or all powerful. Hammond is a warrior god (which explains the multitude of defeats they've endured), and May is their fertility symbol. It's unsurprising to find out that their birth rate is quite low. Just imagine that visage staring down upon you as you copulate. Definite mood killer that".

Clarkson frowns and looks slightly befuddled. "I suppose they don't get out much" he sadly concludes.

"Look here my misguided worshipers, your benevolent Allfather declares that henceforth Cameron Diaz shall be your fertility symbol, not Mr. May. Let it be written in your sacred scrolls and hence forth recommence fornication with renewed vigor so the land may repopulated".

Clarkson chuckles a few times and then continues, "I've also been told that there is a dimension where driving is considered a religious observance and blessings involve the use of high octane oil. Moreover, car ownership costs and expenses are a legitimate religious tax deduction. Hmm, need to investigate that local for my next holiday".

Yana suddenly interrupts "There's something up ahead, I believe its intentions are not friendly".

Ahead, a half mile or so, some creature is resting or lying upon the read.

Clarkson radios "Hammond. There is something on the road up ahead, I'm stopping for moment. Please drive around the car and avoid crushing me. Can your gunner make out what it is? He has the best optics".

The little convoy slows to a stop as the tank maneuvers around the car. The tank come to a stop 20 feet in front of the car and off to the right of the road. Yana grabs a pair of binoculars from the passenger door's side compartment and stands up in the convertible to take a look.

Hammond radios "He says it looks like a dragon, a reddish dragon, we're loading an armor piercing round".

James's recon vehicle leaves the road, on left, and drive up parallel to the tank's position and stops; also off the road.

May radios"Concur. I'm looking at it via the TOW missile launcher optics and it defiantly looks like what I'd imagine a dragon to be, wings and all. Looks like a small version of Tolkien's Smaug".

Yana jesters to Clarkson to give her the radio mike. Yana radios "Actually it's a young adult male drake, not a dragon. Dragons are intelligent and grow to be much larger. This is a red drake, roughly thirty five'ish feet long noise to tail. Their about as smart as a dog, red drakes do breath fire and can fly. Tough, but nothing like a dragon. This one has a collar so he's not wild. He's just laying on the road facing us. Very suspicious. I suspect his owner is using him either as a distraction or is sizing us up. Recommend something aggressive and lethal". Yana sits back down and hands the mike back to Clarkson.

Camera shot switches to Richard who looks nonplussed, he looks at the camera and states "Well, apparently not just a pretty face. Rather thought she'd start getting hysterical at this point. Maybe Jezza actually picked her for more then the obvious assets".

Camera shot switches back to Clarkson, Clarkson radios "Any idea chaps? Hammond you have that big gun and May, this might be a fine time to test the effectiveness of the TOW".

May radios "Mr. Clarkson, I see that your vehicle choice is already failing. I guess it's up to Hammond and I to pull your arse out of the fire. Hammond, you and I could just go off road and drive around the beast and leave Clarkson here to his fate".

Richard radios "Clarkson yes, but it don't feel manly to leave the lady. I think this is a good time to do some ordnance testing. Who wants to go first"?

May radios "Lets try the TOW first. If I miss then you hit it with a cannon round".

There is a high pitched whining sound as the twin TOW missile launcher folds down from its stowed position against the recon vehicle's turret. Both Clarkson and Yana cover their ears. May ducks into the turret and puts his right eye up against the TOW targeting range finder. May mutters "Locked on" then radios "Firing".

The TOW missile departs with a loud whoosh, trailing guidance wires. The missile briefly rises to twenty five feet in height before diving down to race down range, four feet off the road. The drake can be seen to stare and take great interest at the approaching missile. Just as the missile is about to impact the creature the drake leaps into the air while spreading his wings. This causes the missile to miss, passing beneath the drake.

May radios "Oh Cock, it jumped. Hammond it's flying towards us, shoot"!

The drake can be seen flying, roughly forty feet in altitude, towards the convoy. His mouth is open wide, displaying a large number of sharp pointy teeth. A faint red glow can be seen deep in the throat, promising impending fire. The tank's turret is tracking the drake. The gun fires with a rather colossal BOOM. The armor piercing round (an APFADS Armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot to be specific) flashes down range like some kind of laser bolt from Star Wars. The round hits the drake where the chest and neck meet and exits by the upper rear left leg barely impeded by the flesh (Yes a round designed to penetrate over 600mm of armor plate was a bit of over kill for a common drake; now a dragon on the other hand...).

The round continues down range and vanishes from sight (it lands over 4 miles away). The drake tumbles through the air as it crashes to the ground at the side of the road that faces the forest. The throat's red glow fades away. The TOW missile can be seen to still be flying, it's enters the forest to the right of the road and a distant boom can be heard a few seconds later.

"Good shooting Bill" Richard shouts "Can't dodge that! I herby christen this tank Drake's Ban"!

The trio recommence their drive, May's recon vehicle now in the lead, followed by the Richard's tank and the Aston Martin in the rear. Clarkson starts bemoaning to the camera "Again in the rear eating Hammond's exhaust... Wait that not quite what I meant to say". Yana starts giggling at the inadvertent double entendre. May drives past the drake and then pulls off the road facing the forest. His head pops out of the turret, and he looks and the crumpled drake

May radios "Looks quite dead Hammond".

As the tank drives up we see Hammond's torso protruding from the tank turret, he is holding onto the 30 cal machine gun. Hammond glances at the camera, "We all know how this works in horror shows, the monster looks dead only to suddenly spring to life and eat one of the film cast. Let's see the beastie do that with a squished head". With a rather large squishy crackling sound the tank proceeds to drive over the drake's head, with the left track, and parks on it.

"That'll do" Hammond declares with satisfaction.

Clarkson drives up and parks the car on the road. Clarkson looks upon the now headless drake with some dissatisfaction, "Hammond, you squished it you bad person you. Now we can't have the head mounted in the Top Gear offices".

May injects from the top of his vehicle, "Seems a waste to just leave the carcasses, could we attach it to the rear of the tank"?

A few minutes past by, now we see that the tank has pulled forward and that chains have been wrapped around the drake's body and attached to the rear of the tank. The recon vehicle's rear ramp has been lowered and the assault team has taken up parameter guard duty. Everybody is pausing at whatever they are doing to take photos and selfies with their phones. The three presenters have all left their vehicles and are arguing on how to host the body up; after also taking a selfie with the now headless drake.

"It's got to weight several tons, there is no way we can host it using the tank barrel, it might bend" Hammond complains.

Clarkson thinks that a winch would do the trick while May argues that the gun barrel would not bend. Yana is still in the car and can be seen applying some lipstick.

The tank's gunner (Bill) yells down from that top of the tank that there is movement in the forest, which is roughly a quarter mile away. The camera angle shifts to show the forest in the distance. Large wolf like creatures can be seen emerging; there are riders on the wolves.

May raises a pair of binoculars and declares with some disbelieve, "My God, their blue, they look like some kind of tall smerfs. Six foot smerfs armed with swords and spears. And they're riding evil looking giant wolves".

"Elves, blue means they're dark elves" Yana yells from the car!

"Run away" Clarkson bellows as he quotes Monty Python.

May and the assault team hurriedly re-enter the recon vehicle, whose rear ramp can be seen to start winching back up, while Hammond climbs back onto the tank. Clarkson runs to his convertible and quick gets in and starts the car. The wolf riding elves start to charge full out. The car's wheels spin as Clarkson rapidly drives away.

Clarkson radios "Looks like a full on fire fight chaps, I'll just get in the way and like get fragged while you blokes are shooting. I'll just scoot down the road a bit and shoot from there".

The recon vehicle's 22mm Gatling gun can be heard to start to spin in preparation of firing. The tank's main gun fires a high explosive round, a fraction of a second later a fountain of earth erupts as a wolf/rider pair is blow skyward. Then the 20mm fires. A giant zipping sound fills the air as the a 40 foot gout of flame spurts from the Gatling gun as the turret rotates back and forth spraying complete mayhem and death. Both tank and recon vehicle engines burst into life and the two vehicles take off after the now departed Clarkson; well the recon vehicle takes off, the tank kind of limbers in a hurried manner.

The recon vehicle is in front of the tank as they depart the scene at a blistering 45 MPH. The tank is dragging the now forgotten drake, which is bouncing all over the road. Grisly bits now start to fly off the drake due the abuse.

Hammond radios "I can see more emerging from the forest"!

The tank turret rotates to aim at the forest and the main gun coaxial 30 cal machine gun open up with short bursts. On the recon vehicle two rifle barrels poke out of side firing slots and also start firing short bursts. Both the recon vehicle and the tank fire off their externally mounted smoke grenades which quickly obscures all from sight.

Scene shift:

In the distance we see a low horizontal cloud of smoke. We hear Wagner's ride of the Valkyries playing while in slow motion the recon vehicle dramatically emerges from the smoke, followed by the tank. Both turrets are facing backwards towards the smoke. A few seconds later wolf riders, also in slow motion, emerge from the smoke. The tank continues to fire the co-axel 30 cal machine gun while the recon vehicle continues to fire the 20mm in very short bursts, which appear to basically shred any target that is hit. The drake is now mostly gone, only a rear leg is left to gruesomely bounce and flail behind the tank. One particularly vigorous bounce knocks a rider off of his wolf.

We now cut to James, in the recon vehicle's turret, who is busily firing the 20mm.

"I may not have quite thought this through" he states as he fires. "The 20mm is devastating, but God the ammo consumption. Every pull of the trigger is sending 40 rounds down range".

James starts pressing buttons on the firing console. "There, now each pull only fires four rounds. Keep in mind that one round is sufficient to turn your average engine block into smoking scrap. It pains me to admit this, but Jeremy may have something on his vehicle selection. Hammond and I are mostly just passengers who can shoot at things. The actual driving is being done by somebody else".

Meanwhile, several miles up the road, Clarkson and Yana have having difficulties of their own.

Aerial shot of Aston Martin speeding down the road, Yana's hair is flailing in the air flow. The shot pans out and behind the car we see four dark elves riding what appears to be large cheetahs. The cheetahs are rapidly converging on both sides of the car.

"Damnation, the road is too rough to go faster, the baddies are gaining" Clarkson vents with a look of concern. Clarkson holds onto the steering wheel with his left hand while drawing the Berretta 9mm with his right hand. Yana meanwhile has somehow managed to stand up and has turned around facing the oncoming protagonists. Her right foot is on the floor and her left foot is braced against the seat back while her back is up against the windshield. Her hair is whipping about and she has an expression of utter delight (which in hindsight really should have been a clue to the oncoming baddies that this was not a good idea). Surprisingly, silver armor now covers her right side while her left side is still in the elegant black gown. Also somewhat surprising, Yana is now holding a sword, which is aflame with silver fire, with both hands.

The riders converge from both sides. Clarkson, with his trademarked toothy grimace points the 9mm at his cheetah mounted protagonist. He fires his pistol repeatable while shouting, "Eat hollow points you socialist Brussels speed camera bastard"! (Apparently Jeremy was having some kind of EU flashback). Some of Jeremy's rounds actually hit the intended target (it's kind of hard to miss at five feet). Both the cheetah and rider go down hard, rather harder then intended as the rear wheel bounces over something squishy. Meanwhile Yana has already dispatched two riders; one is missing a hand and the other his head.

The one remaining rider comes up behind the convertible and leaps from his steed into the convertible's back seats. He and Yana engage in sword play for a few seconds before Clarkson fires three rounds over his shoulder, gun upside down; while at the same time Yana slices off his right shoulder. The baddie falls backwards and departs the vehicle; his presumed body can be seen tumbling in the road behind the convertible.

"That's the last of that" Clarkson concludes, "The Vanquish has an excellent rear view mirror, just the thing for dispatching baddies over you're shoulder". Meanwhile Yana gets back into her seat; her sword and armor are now gone.

Clarkson radios "Chaps how goes? We've dispatched some high speed nastiss over here".

The scene switches back to show an overhead shot of the tank and recon vehicle. The vehicles are still driving on either side of the road and both turrets are still pointing to the rear; but the wolf riders have apparently given up. They can now be seen milling about over some fallen comrades. The tank takes this opportunity, rather unsporting, to fire a high explosive round into their midst. There is a brief flash and we see more bodies, and bits of bodies, being flung about.

Hammond radios "Just about done here you big coward. Thanks for all the help".

Clarkson radios "My plan was to drive down the road a mile or two and then snipe at the foe. I forgot to mention I've got the official British army sniper rifle in the boot, it's an Accuracy International L115A3 chambered for the .338 round. Longest proven sniper kill in history was done with that rifle. But... we got ambushed by elves riding giant pussies so we've been a bit distracted".

There is silence for a few seconds as the blokes try to digest a completely incorrect mental image. We see a split screen of May and Hammond looking quite confused.

May radios "Are you trying to tell us that you were attacked by elves riding giant naughty lady bits"?

Clarkson radios "No you deviant perverted swine, giant cats. Stop misconstruing my words".

Hammond radios, "Well I'm glad that's cleared up, rather disturbing image you painted there. No, we're clear now".

We now see recon vehicle and tank driving back onto the road, the recon vehicle in the lead. The drake's leg is still bouncing behind the tank looking quite tattered.

Clarkson radios "Well that's good news, I think I see the inn up head so I'll get the beer on and some nibbles ready".

Off in the distance we see a two story building on the right side of the road. There are some horses tided to a hitching post and some horse carts, each with one horse, parked in front of the building.