- Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

-- Centrifugal Death

-- Chapter 7: Firestorm

Like many times before, suddenly Marki and I became invisible. Any IDS soldiers we came across in the hallways of the Talon Gun were scrambling around too hastily to even think about stopping us. We ran too, through the hallways filled with flashing light and blazing alarms. The way they reacted… along with the sick look on Tabitha's face… the explosion the Talon Gun was quickly spinning toward was going to be very, very bad. The elevators no longer worked in the emergency situation, but we easily followed panicking IDS soldiers to stairs. All of us raced to the bottom, trampling over each other and leaping over railings to cover as much extra distance as quickly as possible. Maybe it had to do with the fact that our blue uniforms weren't so far from the IDS black uniforms and with the red flashing light, who could tell? We were just a stream of people trying to escape the inevitable explosion. To think that out of everyone, Dan is the one who caused it. The Talon Gun was a prototype weapon; a million things could go wrong. All we needed was Dan.

"Okay, we're outside. What now?" Marki asked.

After we charged through wide garage doors with everyone else we caught in the mass of soldiers trying to find the fastest form of transportation away from the Talon Gun. The heaviest guns of IDS were quickly abandoned. The Wartanks, the Anti-Tanks, the Rockets… were all left idling out in front of the gun.

"Bike!" I pointed.

Some IDS soldiers were fighting over a bike, when Marki and I joined in. Unfortunately for us, as soon as they noticed we were Lazurians they made a temporary truce to try and kill us both. We had to break off from them and run towards another mass of soldiers fighting. This time the prize was a recon jeep. There were far too many so we kept moving. Transport copters bobbed into the crowds to pick up handfuls of people before flying off and getting away from the Talon Gun. If only we could get a copter of some sort, we could surely make it! But they didn't stick around long enough. By the time we ran to them, they had already pulled away and flew off into the distance. Not to forget, they were the enemy's transport copters.

"Look at them all! This is going to be very, very bad!" Marki yelled.

I looked up to see the Talon Gun spinning like it did before it fired. But it didn't fire. It kept spinning and spinning and spinning. It was dizzying. The alarms that usually signaled it going off were now warning alarms. And we were in the middle of it all.

"Kalina look!"

It was another bike, this time fought over by two IDS soldiers who didn't notice us. We quickly got on, with Marki in the driver's seat and me in the sidecar. I could drive stick, but I couldn't stand bikes. Marki revved the bike and we were off, with the two IDS soldiers turning around and suddenly realizing what they had been fighting over was gone. I suppose it might not have occurred to them to escape together. Marki was right. The Talon Gun explosion looked like it was going to be very, very bad.

"Go go go." I yelled.

Marki cut through the crowds of fleeing IDS soldiers and used the sidecar to bump some of them. I held on for dear life as he overtook recons and tanks that were trying to run. From my seat, it seemed like a huge race with military vehicles, only that the prize at the finish line was the chance to see tomorrow. I turned to see fire shooting out of the top of the Talon Gun as it spun. The fire started to vent out of the barrels and explosions went off at the bottom of it. When I looked back I saw we had turned onto a road and weaved in and out of more IDS tanks.

"Which way are they going? It does us no good if we escape into the arms of the enemy!" I yelled.

"The Talon Gun is going to explode… is this the time to be picky? Any direction away from it is a safe direction!"

Then a recon jeep started firing on us when the soldier on the mounted gun noticed we were not wearing IDS uniforms. First I ducked and then I grabbed hold of the gun on the sidecar and fired back. I must have hit the driver because the recon suddenly swerved, ramped up a little hill and crashed onto its side. A tank quickly hit it, first pushing it away and then rolling right over it. A soldier popped out of the tank, probably to see what they had hit and noticed us. He got on the mounted gun. We could do nothing now, a gun on a sidecar could not punch through armor. As the tank gunner aimed in our direction, the tank itself suddenly exploded. Bombs were falling all around us. I looked up to see bombers from our side starting to take runs on the Talon Gun and anything surrounding it. I couldn't help but cheer.

"They probably have no idea what's about to happen!" I told Marki.

"But they're all the way up there, they can drop all the bombs they want and not worry about the Talon Gun exploding on them!"

Then Marki started to try and dodge bombs that were trying to hit the line of IDS units escaping with us. He had to turn off the first road he found which was a dirt path going off through trees. Being in the sidecar going over such uneven ground was as far from a smooth ride as I could imagine. I had to press my feet and back up against parts of the car to keep from getting tossed. When we came out of the trees we stared to speed along a long straight road that would have passed for a highway in this area. It took us all the way to the town where we had driven Dan's peeling lime green muscle car through. We were actually retreating to our side of the valley! I smiled at Marki, and was going to give him a wave or see if he noticed what I did… when a black duster buzzed the straight road we were on. Outside the town we saw it start to circle around.

"It's not really going to…"

It started to fly right at us with its guns blazing. I fired back with the sidecar's gun, even though it was totally ineffective. Marki managed to swerve well since our bike continued to rocket forward without slowing down. We couldn't stop now. We had just passed the town that the Talon Gun had fired repeatedly on. That was still far too close judging by the way the IDS soldiers were fighting. The Talon Gun's explosion was going to be huge going by that alone.

"There's no way to shake a duster!" Marki yelled at me.

"Just keep driving! Commander Tasha sent bombers, they must have escorts."

I could only hope. I don't think the duster was specifically sent to come after us, even though Tabitha was the one person who I might expect it from. The duster started to chase us from behind, but before it could start shooting a missile hit it and blew it out of the sky. A blue fighter jet rocketed past and back up into the clouds. I turned to look at the Talon Gun again. It looked like a wheel of fire. Part of the base had deteriorated enough where it leaned slightly. Then, it exploded.

"Marki-"

First the shockwave came, hitting all the trees near us and almost flipping the bike we rode. If not for the side car, it would have wiped Marki out, definitely. A flash followed. A flash to end all flashes then a roar like I've never heard before and the Talon Gun disappeared into a column of flame. The column of flame started to expand like a storm rolling across the horizon. It was a firestorm. Shooting out of the cloud of fire was pieces and parts of the gun. The barrels spun out as if they were boomerangs that would come right back. I could hear the huge chunks of detonated metal hit the earth with a huge thud. One mangled section of the gun shot right over us as if it was a meteor. That part crashed some miles ahead of us. Even Marki took his eyes off of the road and looked back to see the fire rolling across the land. IDS and Lazuria must have built the gun out of explosives to have such a blast. It was coming so fast now that not even a helicopter could probably outrun it. Smoke, dust and blasted earth started to roll in front of it obscuring where the flame was shooting across the ground. That cloud started to close on us.

"It's coming!" I shouted as loud as I could.

When the cloud finally caught up to us, it was the most miserable heat I've ever felt. Everything disappeared into a whirlwind of dust and smoke. I felt the sidecar I was in lift off the ground and spin. I couldn't tell if I was facing up or down or flying through the air. I could no longer see Marki, who was right across from me. Then everything came to a sudden stop and I hit something. It was probably the ground, but I hit it so hard that everything went black. All the noise stopped. I smelled nothing, I felt nothing. The world went far away. It was like when Tabitha threw me to the ground, only so much worse. However long it lasted was anyone's guess. When it stopped, I was laying on the ground looking straight up with my eyes burning. A haze of red smoke had descended over everything. Some of the trees along the side of the road were on fire. And I could not see Marki.

"Marki?" I croaked, my voice hardly worked.

I continued to shout for him, even though my throat wanted me to stop. I couldn't stand up, only crawl along the ground. When I got to my feet, I took one step and fell down. I coughed whenever I tried to breathe, and I remembered what I had never forgotten. The Talon Gun had blown up, self-destructed after overloading trying to take on too many targets at once. A sick man in a top hat with too much time on his hands had done it. He had spent his days hiding from people and reading top secret documents he found lying around. He tried to kill us, and then Tabitha Caulder killed him. And everything leading up to this point was worth it just because it caused the destruction of a horrible weapon. I closed my eyes, I was content.

"Hey, we got another one!" Someone yelled.

I opened my eyes with a start and my body jerked. There was a man in a gasmask standing over me. He was dragging me.

"Who…"

"Kyle Fencer, just stay calm. I'm trying to get you out of this shit storm."

Slowly the red haze started to go away the further we went. Soon I could see the dust covered skies and it no longer hurt to breathe. When the man in the gasmask stopped dragging me, I found myself lying next to Marki in the middle of the road who looked just as dazed as I felt.

"Hey, I found two Lazurians. Do I get some sort of promotion?" Fencer asked someone I couldn't see.

"Yeah, maybe in the future you can go on Kine's special missions. Those sound like a lot of fun."

"Shut up both of you, these two just survived a crash!"

There were so many voices I didn't recognize.

"Did you see that bike? End over end! It was like a god damn cartoon!"

"You mean before the giant dust cloud smothered us all?"

The world was starting to stop moving around me. I tried to sit up but someone held me down.

"Wait, Kalina." It was Jones. "Don't move. If you didn't hear, both you and Marki skipped across the road like stones."

"Screw that, they bounced! Boing!"

"Are these… are these the Rubes…"

"Yeah, Heckler's unit. They found me; I told them what you were trying to do. I don't think anyone is ever going to believe you. The bombers hit the Talon Gun close to when it exploded. Where's Dan?"

"Dead." I coughed. "He was shot."

"Good for him."

"You're never going to forgive him, are you?" I asked.

"Never."

Somehow I knew we had won. Without the Talon Gun, Tabitha wouldn't stand a chance against our air force. That weapon was the only thing keeping us from bombing them into nothing. And after what we did… we had set off the biggest bomb I had ever seen- The Talon Gun itself right in middle of everything.

"Not bad for the three of us…" I said.

"Not bad for you, you mean. You and Marki… you're crazy."

"Twenties."

I couldn't help but smile at Dan's stupid first impression.

- End of Story

-- Thanks for Reading!