Five O'Clock... How could anyone drive nonstop through out the night with no sleep?
Sally had immediately began her long journey along the road at around 12 in the morning, and it was right about 4:02 am right now; And not only did she go by herself, but someone had also tagged along with her. Lena.
With only two more hours remaining of her desperate drive to the town, Sally and her generous helper, Lena, were perspicaciously keeping their eyes locked on the dusty road ahead of them.
The only true reason Lena tagged along, was because she was honestly worried over Sally not having anyone to protect her if she was targeted, and Lena just so happened to know karate/Self-Defense incredibly from her recent caretaker. In this case, Lena was prepared for the fight that she would need to withstand, in order to proudly protect the ones who deserve to be protected.
"A-Aouch... oww.." Lightning weakly groaned in discomfort as he slowly woke up, extremely sore. He was in his usual cone, pondering about on why something felt a little... strange, this morning.
Opening the door to his cone, he peered around with a blank expression written on his face. Silent.
His first instinct was to bring his full attention to Sally's office, but he suddenly stared in confusion. Slowly driving out of his room, he approached her office where she usually resided in the early mornings, only to see that she wasn't there. Immediately, he felt that heavy pressure of uneasiness and anxiousness in the pit of his tank.
Quickly accelerating the opposite direction and speeding off into town, his eyes first spotted Flo, and so he rushed over to her, speaking in a frightened tone of voice.
"Flo! Please, Please, pleaaassseee, tell ne the truth; Have you seen Sally this morning?" Lightning held a ridiculously worried expression, waiting for her response.
"I'm sorry, hun. I haven't seen her since yesterday, Why? Don't tell me she's missing too...!" Her uniquely inherited turquoise eyes widened, deep worry bringing a heavy weight to her entire self.
"I have no idea, that's what I'm trying to figure out..." He muttered, shaking his head in disbelief before driving off back into town.
"Great, now there's three missing..? Sal, you better not be in any trouble..." Lightning absent-mindedly muttered to himself, driving back to the Cozy Cone to think all of this over.
"Look, there it is!" Lena alerted Sally of the place they've finally reached.
They quite successfully drove into the run-down ghost town, but eventually paused for a quick, ten-second breather before venturing off further into the abandoned place.
"Sheesh, This place is so... Old." Sally scrunched her face in disgust, kicking a piece of rotting wood out of her way with her tire.
"Tell me 'bout it..." Lena mumbled to herself, but then abruptly stopped in her tracks, when she caught sight of a completely open wooden door, only a matter of a few feet away from them.
"Look, Sally, there's a door right there..- Wait a second, Isn't that the door Sheriff came in...?" Lena carefully inched closer to the rotting piece of wood called a door, and cautiously glanced around at what was beyond it.
"You're right, that is it...! Good catch, Lena; Come on.." Sally ordered in a hushed voice, quietly sneaking completely into the room, but harshly jolted in fright when the door suddenly slammed shut behind them, a man's low laughter suddenly emitting through out the grungy room.
"... You must be their friends, I see.." An unseen car nearly growled towards the both of them.
"Who are you, and where are my friends?" Sally cut in rather sternly, Lena in her defense stance right beside her friend.
"Ah, I see we have an impatient little one here!" The car who'd just been speaking, showed himself under a beaming bright light.
"So, do you have any idea who I am?" The slightly rusted blue car said, inching closer and closer to Sally and Lena. His frame figure was small in size and almost seemingly representing a 1988 Honda CRX-HF. His expression was unreadable, to the point where it was frightening.
"N-No..." Sally responded in an accidental stutter, nervously backing up a bit.
Again, he inched closer and closer until Sally unfortunately bumped against the concrete wall behind her, faintly gasping as she did.
"I'm Lightning McQueen's Brother."
Both Lena and Sally went wide-eyed, staring in disbelief at the car that was in front of them, his deep blue ocean-like eyes peering down at them with so many emotions mixed into them, it was nearly impossible to figure out his mood.
"Brother...? But..- Wait..- How..- Why are you doing all of this?" Sally stumbled over all of the things that she wanted to immediately say at once. but ended up shouting at him in uncontainable frustration.
"For revenge... Sweet, Sweet revenge.." His mad-like grin grew into a ghastly terrifying one, slowly backing himself away.
Sally was full of questions, but before she could say even a word more, ceiling lights suddenly shone brightly in the room and they were completely surrounded by a bunch of other cars, bigger and stronger looking than them. Sally gulped in fear, but Lena stood strong, ready to do what she had to do.
"GET THEM!"
Sally helplessly watched as Lena put her brilliant karate skills to good use, almost already putting all of the cars to shame.
As most of the others were being defeated and passing out from hood trauma, Sally took this as a great opportunity to search for Sheriff, Doc and Mater. She dodged away from damaged cars, and made her way to an open door. A few more doors that she passed, her eyes immediately landed upon Doc, Mater, and Sheriff being held hostage by thick chains being attached to the ground.
Sally panic-strikingly gasped and immediately drove up to Sheriff. She knew that he was still alive and stable, because he was still breathing just fine. Forcefully breaking the chains off of Sheriff and removing the blindfold from him, Sally cautiously nudged him awake, a terrifyingly worried expression masking her usually content demeanor.
"Sheriff! Sheriff, It's me, Sally! I'm here to get you guys out of here..!" She loudly whispered to him, anxiously waiting until he completely woke up from his uncalled-for slumber.
"S-Sally...? What... in the world are you doin' here..?" Sheriff muttered in shock as he carefully eyed her as she broke the chains off of Doc and Mater, with only her bare tires.
"Saving you guys." She responded effortlessly, noticing Mater slowly start to open his eyes.
"Mater...? Mater, can you hear me?" Sally lightly whispered to him, not wanting to frighten him anymore than he probably already was.
"W-Wh.. A-... Whure... is.. this?" Mater groaned out in confusion, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
"Don't worry about that right now, let's just get you home safely..." Sally left Mater to gather his senses beside Sheriff, and then without any thought, drove over to Doc. She threw the chains from him aside, and slipped the blind fold off. Doc had his eyes fully closed, and was badly injured with scratches, dents and somewhat flat tires. Sally shook her head with slightly wide eyes at the sight of him so beaten up, feeling a sensation of solicitude in the pit of her tank.
"Doc...? Are you awake? Answer me, please." Sally desperately pleaded, but had gotten no response from him.
"You guys, we really need to get him back, he's not even responsive..." She alerted Sheriff and Mater in a warning tone of voice, glancing over to look at the two who were now wide-awake and aware of their sudden foreign surroundings.
Just then, Lena came rushing into the room and literally frantically yelled at everyone with an exhausted but terrified look on her face.
"We have to get out of here, NOW!" Lena demanded and watched as Sally immediately turned to Mater.
"Mater, do you feel well enough to tow Doc back to Radiator Springs?" Sally concernedly asked him.
"Well, I'm feelun' juss fine; Shure, I can." Mater said in a slightly muttered voice, hooking Doc up carefully with his tow cable.
"Brilliant; Now, let's get out of here...!" Sally said in relief to everyone, firstly taking the lead with Sheriff.
Sally, Sheriff, Lena, Doc and Mater had made it out of the building safely and without getting caught, and so now the only thing that they had to worry about was getting back home in one piece. About only 3 miles into the long drive back to Radiator Springs, Doc had out-of-the-blue, started to slowly but surely regain consciousness.
Lena was the last one that was following behind everybody, and seen Doc suddenly try to open his eyes but he was too weak to even to such a small thing, so he ended up just re-closing them, emitting a very weak sigh.
"S-Sally, come here quick...!" Lena immediately hollered to Sally. Sally blink at hearing what Lena said, and carefully slowed down to take a spot beside Lena, questioning her in curiosity.
"What's wrong?"
"I think he's waking up.." Lena gestured towards Doc.
Sally felt a small sudden wave of relief wash over herself, knowing that Doc was awake, but was still deep down worried that he wouldn't make it on time. She drove up closer to him and started speaking in a soft tone.
"Doc, are you okay? Are you in any pain..?" She spoke to him like a concerned mother would, but still kept that usual sweet tone in her voice.
Doc only faintly groaned in response and didn't say a word.
Lena payed attention to the conversation Sally attempted to start with Doc right in front of her, only to allow her expression to slip into disappointment. She silently prayed to herself that everyone would be alright and return back to Radiator Springs safely.
Almost four hours put into driving back home, Mater and Sheriff had unexpectedly run out of gas, leaving all of them to remain at the side of the road at one in the morning.
"Oh, this is terrible...!" Sally quietly exclaimed to herself, exhaling out in defeat.
"Whut is we gonna do now? Mater spoke up, while staring at everyone in disbelief.
"If we don't come up with a plan to go through with, we'll be stranded out here for the rest of the night!" Sally attempted to think as hard as she could to come up with a plan, but nothing.
Lena, who was unable to sit back and watch all of this go downhill from here, went up to Sally and slightly nudged her, getting her attention.
"I could keep driving back to town and call for help..! It's only another two hour drive, and I can drive fast! Come on, I can do this!" Lena cheered, begging Sally.
"Lena, It's too dangerous to be driving this late at night by yourself; I can't let you do that!" Sally immediately denied, not wanting to live in guilt the rest of her life if something did happen to Lena.
"Please, Come on! This is an emergency! Would you rather wait here even 'Longer' and let him die? Or would you rather get to town and call for help, saving them and bring them home safely? Your choice.." Lena said in a bit of frustration towards Sally, making her stare at Lena with wide eyes.
Sally knew she was right, but she just couldn't let her go by herself so late at night.. But then again, she knew if they just waited around for nothing, something bad could happen to her friends and she would regret it forever.. Finally, she made her mind up.
"Go.." Sally nudged her forward towards the road and Lena looked back at her.
"Really?" She asked to make sure she wasn't hearing things.
"Just be careful.." Sally whispered to her before Lena valiantly nodded and quickly sped off, headed back to town.
Sally stared at the ground for a moment, thinking about what she had just done, but was suddenly thrown out of thought when she heard slightly heavy and distressed coughing coming from Doc.
Mater quickly unhooked his tow cable from Doc and maneuvered himself beside him, worried.
"Doc..? Is ya okay?" Mater asked, his voice in between worry and fear.
Doc tried to speak, to maybe say only a few words, but only resulted in more violent fits of coughing.
"You'll be just fine, Doc.. Don't worry, there's help coming so just try to hang in there..." Sally reassuringly cooed to Doc in attempt to try to calm him down in any which way possible. But, it seemed to actually work. He slowed down his coughing, and was breathing a bit heavily, almost panting, but better.
"There you go; Just relax, It's alright..." Sally softly whispered to him and watched as he closed his eyes and took a deep, shaky breath and let it out.
Mater faintly smiled at witnessing Sally's comforting reassurance. He was touched to see Sally be so helpful for Doc in his time of desperate need.
Everyone back at Radiator Springs had eventually realized that Sally and Lena 'were' missing. That made Lightning even more upset then he already was. Loosing his friends were bad enough, now loosing the last thing that he loved so dearly, shattered him to pieces. They were all gathered at the V8 café, waiting. Waiting for something, anything, to happen...
At exactly 3:33 am, they heard the frantic driving of a car come closer and closer into town. They all peeked down the road to see a sudden flash of headlights.
"Look; Someone's coming!" Flo hollered as everyone moved back in unison.
Right when Lena came into town, she rushed up to everyone and spoke rapidly.
"Sheriff, Mater, Sally and Doc are stranded nearly out in the middle of nowhere and they need help; NOW!" Lena practically shouted at everyone, Lightning's eyes widening in horror.
"...What?" Lightning hollered in disbelief, staring at Lena in shock.
Flo gasped in alarm and made her way towards Lena.
"Are they okay? What happened?" Flo went wide-eyed, set into her panic-mode.
"Well, Mater and Sheriff ran out of gas and Doc isn't really doing so well; Sally is there, making sure they're safe, but they need help and fast. We can't call 911 because we have no idea what the name of the area they're in is! If somehow, we could just bring some gas over to them so Mater could tow Doc back here then call an ambulance to take him to a hospital.." Lena said, at least more calmer this time.
"Well, we could fill up containers with some gas and take it to them!" Flo said, gesturing towards the gas containers at the café.
"That would be excellent, but, the drive is two hours! We need someone who could drive fast...-!" After her words were spoken, she eventually noticed everyone expectantly glancing towards Lightning.
"Oh, no... No, no, no, no, no..-! Come on! I don't even know if I'm capable of driving that fast anymore-!" Lightning retorted, waving his tire in the air to emphasize his point.
"Do it for your friends, Lightnin'! You're a strong car and I know you can do it..." Flo encouraged him, using her motherly-sweet tone of voice.
Lightning thought hard, pondering over the idea. Knowing that this was to be done for his friends, his 'best' friends, nothing would be able to stop him. Nothing could hold him back anymore.
"OK. Only because it's for my friends and especially Sally... But if I break down in the middle of nowhere, It's not my fault!" Lightning said in courage as Flo handed him two fresh, full containers of gas and tied it securely over him.
"Good luck, Dear." Flo said sweetly, watching over him as he carefully prepared himself at the beginning of the long road.
He glanced all the way ahead of him, peering down the long, dark empty road that waited longingly for him. He stared ahead with determined eyes, revving his engine a few times.
First, there was the sound of slow and gentle rushing wind as he started off slow, but by the time he knew it, he was speeding across those paved roads, smiling proudly as the wind swiftly brushed past him at the fast speed he continued at going.
This was it.