Chapter 14. Things can get Worse
Less than 40 minutes had passed, Inuyasha and the tankers had managed to build a crude, yet sturdy wooden wagon from the trees that Inuyasha cut down to put their injured friends on and take them back to the village for medical attention. Fury had only about two stretchers on board, so Miroku and Sango were loaded on separate stretchers then Shippo, Kirara and Joaquin were put on the wagon by a single stretcher. They managed to tie up the wagon to the back of the tank and they drove off back to the village as fast as they could so their friends would receive medical attention. They were driving down a barren road at full speed so they can get back to the village before it's too late. All was going smoothly, when all of a sudden… KER-SNAP! A loud metallic snapping sound was heard twice and both of Fury's tracks fell apart.
"SHIT! NOT ANOTHER FUCKING LANDMINE!" Grady screamed out of frustration.
"It's spent, it's spent! Just relax, the tracks expired and broke that's all." Wardaddy calmly told the gang.
Everybody took deep breaths and got out to see the damage for themselves.
"How bad is it?" Don asked
"Well, they're spent as fuck. Busted a bogie too." Grady said as he reviewed the damage.
"Can you fix them?" Don asked his Mr. Fix-it.
"Ah, why the hell not." Grady groaned.
"I don't understand, why did the tracks suddenly give out on us?" Kagome said to Don.
"Kagome," Wardaddy started, "tank tracks are not invulnerable to wear and decay, they have to be replaced after every two thousand or so miles. Everything has its limits to wear and tear, humans, animals, cars, swords, even guns and tanks have their limits. I knew I was forgetting about something, I just didn't realize that we needed to change the tracks and wheels sooner."
"Well fuck you Don! It's your fucking fault you forgot to change 'em!" Coon-ass shouted.
"Lay off, Grady!" Bible rebuked. "No one is to blame here. Everybody makes mistakes in their lives, even you and Don."
"Vaminos compadres, vaminos!" Gordo urged his colleagues. "Sango and the others need help, especially my little miho Joaquin." He said with a hint of worry and sadness.
"All right then," Don started, "Inuyasha, you're pretty fast, I need you to take our injured in the cart back to Kaede's village and tell them to take care of them immediately. Norman, you and Kagome go with him."
"I'm a demon, not an ox or a work-horse!" Inuyasha yelled.
"Inuyasha!" Kagome shouted, "SIT BOY!"
Inuyasha dropped down face first into the ground.
"This is no time to argue! Miroku, Sango, Shippo, Kirara and Joaquin are badly injured and need to be healed. So quit whining and get going!"
"Yeah, yeah." Inuyasha grumbled.
"Wait up!" Wardaddy said. "Take the spare wheel and track, so the blacksmiths have something to go on."
"Good idea." Kagome replied.
The spare wheel and track were loaded onto the cart and Inuyahsa sped down the road towards the village.
One hour later…
Wardaddy and the rest of his crew were trying to fix their tank's treads so they can get back on the road, but to little avail. Wardaddy saw Norman running back straight towards them at full tilt.
"Hey! HEY!" Norman screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Good afternoon Norman, why ain't you with the others? And where's our help?" Wardaddy asked his bow gunner.
"They're coming! They're coming right now!" Norman exasperated.
"Who's coming?" Don asked in a raised voice.
"ANT DEMONS!" Norman blurted out.
"Slow down Norman, just start from the beginning." Don told the boy.
*Flashback*
Inuyasha was running at full speed with the cart when he saw the demon blacksmith Totosai riding on his three-eyed flying bull. It was none other than Totosai, the semi-legendary blacksmith who forged the Tetsaiga and Tenseiga from the fangs of the Inu no Taisho, the father of Inuyasha and Sesshomaru.
"Inuyasha, what's the big rush, did you break Tetsaiga yet again? If you did I'm going to take its remains and melt them down to be used for cutlery."
"SHUT UP YOU OLD BASTARD!" Inuyasha barked, "Our friends our badly hurt and they need help!"
"Yeah, and our tank's tracks have broken!" Kagome added. She then gave it some quick thought and made a bold decision, it was risky but it could definitely pay off. She reached for Fury's spare wheel and track and lifted them upright so the senile old yokai would see them. "This is the spare wheel and track for the Fury tank. Please Tototai, you're the only one who could fix the tank by making new treads and wheels for them!" Kagome pleaded.
"Fury? The infamous war machine from the future?" Totosai exclaimed; he gave it some thought and said, "Find someone else, I made it clear that I don't like to forge weapons to be used for mass murder." He replied adamantly.
"YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!" Norman screamed! "OUR FRIENDS HAVE BEEN BADLY HURT BY A ROCK MONSTER THAT NEARLY KILLED US ALL, OUR TANK'S LOST ITS TRACKS AND WE'RE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN KILL NARAKU! PLEASE HELP US ALREADY!" Norman screeched while nearly at the brink of tears.
Totosai started at the desperate face of Norman Ellison, gave it some thought and whipped out a paper charm that had the Japanese kanji for 'barrier' and then cast a barrier over Inuyasha, Kagome, and the cart full of their injured friends and the spare parts; Norman jumped out of the way since the old codger threw the tag straight at him.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" Inuyasha roared.
"LET US OUT!" Kagome screamed.
"What are you doing?!" Norman asked the demon blacksmith in a raised voice.
Totosai just stared blankly at the boy and said, "Hold off a mere 500 of my demon fire ants and I'll treat your friends and fix your tank. Best you start running boy! They'll tear you to pieces."
Demon fire ants started emerging from the ground, and they were big, big as the ones from the 1954 sci-fi horror movie THEM! Norman started to bolt back to the tank at full speed while Totosai telekinetically lifted the bubble barrier full of Team Inuyasha and retreated back to his new home.
*Present time*
"So that's it, we hold off those demons and he'll fix our tank for us?" Wardaddy asked.
"Yeah," Norman confirmed.
"How many demons did he say we have to hold off?" Don asked his bow gunner.
"Uh, too many to count." Norman replied.
"HOW MANY?!" Don asked again in a raised voice.
"I think he said about 500 demon ants. That's it." Norman responded, still heavy in breath.
"Just a bunch of ugly bums lookin' for a picnic, that's all." Coon-ass muttered out loud.
"No, no you don't understand Grady!" Norman said in a worried tone "They're big, red, they were growling, roaring, they sounded like they were looking for a fight."
"Where?" Bible asked.
"I'm telling you, right over there, down the road, where that smoke is." Norman said pointing off into the distance.
"You see and hear that?" Grady asked.
"It's a bunch of goddamn fire ants." Wardaddy said.
"Bullshit." Gordo rebuked.
"Well, we're boned." Grady said as he threw his socket wrench down on the ground.
(*Start playing Fury's This is My Home*)
"Grady get my guns." Bible ordered.
"Yeah, Norman go get your pack, get your shit and let's get outta here." Grady said.
"Yeah," Bible added, "It's about to be dark, let's just get back to the village, let 'em pass on through, we can get help from Kaede and we'll cook up a plan to rescue Kagome and the others."
Wardaddy refused to comply with their decision. "We ain't never run before I ain't runnin' now."
"What?" Bible asked in astonishment.
"I'm gonna meet and complete Totosai's challenge." Don replied.
"What you mean you gonna meet and complete the challenge?" Grady said. "The tank's busted. The tank's fuckin' busted, Top!"
"Yeah, you said that." The sergeant replied nonchalantly.
"So what do you wanna do, you just wanna sit out here and fight off 500 giant fire ants by yourself?" Grady asked in a sarcastic, desperate, angry tone of voice.
"That's not what I wanna do, but it's what we're doing." Don replied as he worked his way over to the tank's M2 Browning.
"That's five against five-hundred!" Gordo said to his sergeant.
"Get in to your fighting positions, mount up!" Sgt. Collier told his men.
"How we gonna get into our fighting positions when we ain't got a tank?!" Grady roared. "HOW WE GONNA FIGHT?!"
"WE GOT A CANNON! THAT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME!" Don retorted.
"That don't make sense, Top!" Gordo exclaimed.
"STOOOOOP!" Bible shouted. "What. Are. You. Doing?!"
Wardaddy didn't say anything as he mounted the ammo belt box to the M2 Browning and loaded it. He took a long look at his crew and then said. "Get out of here, get to the village." He then looked at the boys with a stern, yet understanding face and said, "Boys, take care of yourselves. Get to the village for help."
They all just stood there gawking at their sergeant, he was willing to risk everything to save the others and fix his tank even if it would cost him his life. They never would've guessed that he considered the members of team Inuyasha to be a part of their family, of course he did after they got separated, but he never openly displayed it in a manner like this.
"It's all right." He told them with a calm, sympathetic face. "You don't have to fight if you don't want to."
"Hmm. It's all right." Bible said.
"This tank's my home." Wardaddy said as he gave an affectionate pound on Fury's hull. "I could never leave it even if I wanted to."
Norman paused for a moment and then got up on the tank. "I'm staying here with you."
"All right, I'll need you to load." Don told the young man. He turned his attention to the rest of his crew and said, "Boys, get on, it's all right."
Bible stood there staring at him for a moment and realized just how important their bond as a tank crew family is. "Grady, come on, let's do this." The gunner then clambered onto the tank and said, "We're gonna stay!"
"Uh huh, got that right." Gordo added as he got back onto the tank.
"What is your plan?" Bible asked his tank commander.
Grady was about to say something objective when he started to see the first few fire ants come into view over the horizon. He then threw up his right arm and said, "Fuck it," as he got up on the tank at last.
Wardaddy stood still for a moment, pounded his fist on the hull in happiness and said, "Get in and load a Supercharge with the point delay!"
Team Fury then got back into their home and quickly loaded up for the battle to come. As the demon ants started to get closer, the tension was mounting but the five Americans held their fire until Don gave the word.
"Come on in you cock-suckers, just come on in, Daddy's waitin' for ya." Don muttered as he pulled a grenade pin. "Almost…"
One of the ants started to grab the bow gunner hatch handle by its mandibles and Norman fired a burst at its head killing the giant insect.
"NOW!" Wardaddy shouted as he threw grenades out of his hatch to start killing the ants closest to his tank.
"Like that, motherfuckers?!" Grady said as threw a grenade out the tank's shell disposal hatch. He loaded the point-delay set Supercharge shell and shouted "CLEAR!"
"On the way!" Bible responded as he fired the first shot at the closest bunch of fire ants.
Grady loaded another supercharge and Boyd repeated the process. Coon-ass and Norman opened up with the coax and bow-mounted machine guns.
"Fucking demons. Fuck!" Norman cursed as he started to mow down the bugs.
"They're runnin' they're runnin'! Traverse left!" Sgt. Collier ordered. "Bow gunner, squirt those fiery assholes running for our flank, cut them fuckers down!"
Norman did as he was told and kept on shooting, but he couldn't shake the feeling in the back of his mind that something was strangely suspicious.
"Loader, put in a round of Willy Pete, time for a little pest control. Bible put it on our left flank, there's a lot of them sons of bitches!"
"CLEAR!"
"FIRE! FIRE!" Don urged.
"ON THE WAY!"
The White Phosphorus shell poisoned the ants and they started dropping like flies.
"Give me another, that was beautiful!" Don exclaimed.
"YOU CLEAR!"
"ON THE WAY!"
"Bow gunner, watch our right!"
"Yeah you better fuckin' run!" Norman growled as he kept up the pressure. But as he kept the MG running he noticed that the ants weren't really attacking. He paused for a moment and then stopped.
"NORMAN I SAID KEEP SHOOTING!" Wardaddy blared over the intercom.
"No, I don't think they want to fight just trust me on this one!" Norman blared back.
Then all of a sudden the tank's rear left corner started to lurch up into the air and the other tankers started to panic! Then the whole tank started to be lifted up into the air and started moving towards where the ants were coming form.
"STOP PANICKING! ALL OF YOU!" Norman shouted at the top of his lungs. "I just don't think they want to fight."
"HOW DO YOU KNOW? ARE YOU AN ANT SCIENTIST?!" Gordo shouted back.
"No, but I remember studying them in 7th Grade Biology, ants can lift things ten times their size and they work together as a team to take food back to the anthill and defending the colony."
"THEN HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW THEY DON'T WANT TO EAT US?!" Gordo shouted.
"Because I told them not to." An elderly voiced boomed from overhead. It was Totosai on his flying bull. "My real challenge was to see if Norman's heart was in the right place, not have you needlessly kill dozens of my worker ants."
Don got out of his hatch to talk to the old geezer. "Then what the hell was this challenge all about?"
"To teach you guys to know when to stop needless killing, and to teach you that not all demons are bad… who was this lesson for again?" He said in a moment of forgetfulness.
Don then shot at him with his revolver as punishment for forgetting Norman's name and face.
"It was me, Norman." The boy said as he emerged from his hatch.
"Ah yes, it was you sonny-boy. I could tell that you still had a heart of gold even with such unruly murderers." Coon-ass and Gordo didn't like that and shot at him too.
"Hey! Do you want me to help fix your tank or not? The point is, I wanted to teach you all that killing for the most part is meaningless, and that not all demons are bad."
"So why sick these ants on us?" Wardaddy asked in annoyance.
"Because your machine would be too much for me to carry, I use them to collect metals for me so I can forge them into swords and other tools, but I do not like making weapons that are meant for slaughter and massacres. Uh, why am I doing this?"
"So we can find the shards of the Sacred Jewel and kill that cock-sucker Naraku!" Don roared at the old demon with Alzheimer's disease.
"Oh yeah, Naraku, who is he again?" Tototsai asked.
"Never mind," Don groaned as he rubbed his eyes in annoyance, "Just fix out tank, will ya!"
"Okay, okay, no need to get feisty with me." Totosai replied. "Just going to take you back to my workshop so I can fix up your machine there and patch up your friends."
Three days had passed, and despite mounting frustration and a lots of arguing and elder abuse (ha!), Totosai managed to make new tracks and wheels for Fury, with plenty in reserve for future replacements. Sango, Miroku, Shippo, Kirara and Joaquin suffered broken bones, a damaged exoskeleton for the spider, punctured arteries, and blood clotting, but the injuries were treatable, it would take them eight weeks to heal before they could get back in the action, but they were tended to and were going to live after all. For the next two months, Team Fury would be going at it alone with just Inuyasha and Kagome, to recover the Sacred Jewel fragments, kill off the remaining members of the Band of Seven, and then find and defeat Naraku once and for all.
*All right! Finally got this chapter done! Forgive me for taking so long, but getting used to a new lifestyle can be quite the odyssey. I know I said I'd be posting new chapters after a three week break but I've been travelling back and forth from Berkeley to Walnut Creek each week to keep my stay in the College Internship Program I'm living under and help out with the family business. But I'm not dead yet, nor have I given up on this story! And I make this vow: Come Hell or High Water, I will finish this story before the year of 2015 is over! *