(Author's Note: HA! It takes more than a video card meltdown and a vomit inducing illness to stop me from writing a new chapter! ...though it did do a good job of slowing it down. But enough excuses, on with the show!)
A potentially inappropriate smile graced Cyborg's lips.
Pressing harder on the gas pedal underfoot, the city blurred by as the car accelerated in response. Slight turning of the steering wheel, and the car rotated in its course, getting some extra distance from a van parked alongside the road. Just like he had planned.
The most control he'd had over anything since the fiasco started. He felt kind of dirty, driving a conscripted convertible instead of the well-designed and legitimately owned T-Car. But after being on an almost nonstop run from zombie kids, pumpkins, bear things, and zombie non-kids; he was perfectly happy just being able to directly influence something.
His passenger, meanwhile, had been turning her head to look in various angles with a wary look on her face, as she had been for the past couple minutes. Cyborg guessed she was expecting something to come at them from any direction at any time; a prudent expectation given the series of events thus far. Still, a small part of his mind was smug at seeing her drop the "cool and in control" facade she loved to parade around.
"Ahead!"
A focused look in that direction revealed at least one rapidly approaching orange object. The sudden outburst gave him an extra split second of reaction time, and he made use of it by swerving into the other lane.
The single pumpkin, as it was revealed to be as it passed, was limited to lashing out at the car with the two nearer vines to itself, failing to have any noticeable effect on the car's body. It then continued through the air, passing the car entirely. The rear view in Cyborg's side mirror confirmed as the orange shape faded into the distance.
"Flying pumpkins now?" Cyborg half-yelled over the air rushing by, burying the question of what kind it was.
"Think I saw a fifth vine on this one," Jinx responded to the unspoken query, as she placed the shoulder strap of her seat belt behind her. "Long, like that one at the warehouse."
"Right, that one couldn't air brake either. It'll have a hard time catching back up to us, I bet!"
"We don't know how many of them there are, that's what worries me!"
As if on cue, another two zoomed in towards the car.
"It didn't dodge well either," Cyborg said as he released his left hand's grip on the steering wheel and deployed his sonic cannon from it. "I got the one on the left!"
"Right—I mean got it."
With a continuous blue beam on the left, and a burst of violet waves to the right; both pumpkins ruptured, splattering their internal contents into the air.
And caking the windshield with irregular orange pulp. The force of the orange splatters pressing against the windshield squeezed eerily bright red fluid out. Fluid which, carried by the momentum of the car, flowed up and to the sides of the windshield, forming little streaks of liquid in the air as it flowed over the edges. The pulp itself separated and slid off the windshield in fibrous clumps.
"At least there's no smell sticking around," Cyborg commented with subdued disgust, as he set the windshield wipers to cleaning off the orange and red streaks from the glass. At the same time he applied pressure to the brake pedal, uninterested in crashing due to insufficient visibility to avoid obstacles at high speed.
"Can we get to the freeway from here?" Jinx asked.
"Nearby? Not the one that'll get us closer to the Tower."
"Room to maneuver just became a priority."
"I hear ya," he replied in the affirmative. "We'll get on, head south, take the exit, and then get on the west-bound towards the Tower. Fastest way there, if you don't mind being real obvious and real visible."
"Visible doesn't matter, they already know where we are. Wait," she added, her attention drawn to her side mirror. "Is that..."
He didn't need her to finish the sentence, her turning to face behind the car and the purple flash of light told him all he needed to know.
The pumpkin came screaming in from behind, too fast for Jinx's hex to connect. Its mass hit the windshield, shattering the glass as it bounced off the newly distorted frame, while a long vine ensnared Jinx's arm. Exactly what it was planning to do next, Cyborg had no interest in finding out.
He grabbed the vine with his right hand, then slammed on the brakes. Amidst the squeal of the tires against the road, inertia carried the pumpkin forward ahead of the car. When he felt the pressure of the vine reaching its limit, he shifted from the brakes to the gas. The pumpkin had no opportunity to reposition itself to avoid being the victim of a hit-and-run with an unhealthy crunch.
"OW!" Jinx yelled as the coil slid off her arm, its other end still attached to the newly fragmented pumpkin on the street.
"You alright?"
She looked at her arm for a second, during which time Cyborg realized that was the same arm that she got that cut on. "Well it's not bleeding again, but that scraping stings like hell. Lot of pressure for how thin it looked."
"Seems like all these pumpkin things are stronger than they should be. Well..freeway, comin' up!"
Getting onto the freeway was uneventful, with a lack of both traffic and gourd interception. The freeway itself had a complete lack of traffic, other than the two of them. Nor did it have any obstacles. Cyborg had expected some amount of damaged dividers, abandoned vehicles, or other signs of aggression and/or widespread panic; but by now the fog was gone, and the road was in its normal state of repair as far as his eyes could see.
"This ain't right," he said. "Been following or searching for us all the way here, for hours, and a major road that leads straight out of town is abandoned?" Not that they were heading that far out, but it would be an incredible access point to overlook.
"Could be blocked off at the ends...but yeah, this is too big of an oversight."
"Maybe they can't catch us?" Cyborg offered hopefully.
"All the more reason to have messed up the freeway to slow us down, then. And there's not even any kids to keep track of us."
"But look at that skyline," he said, gesturing towards the wide-open view of skyscrapers in the distance. "We're the only thing on this route, there's loads of places to track us from out there."
"Then...That's not good. If they know where we are, but don't have anything here..."
"They're waiting for us. This is a freeway, limited access on or off. They're repositioning."
"We have to get off of here," Jinx said, glancing around more nervously than before.
"Love to, if I thought this thing could survive crashing through the concrete wall on the side. Suppose I could rig the accelerator, and we crash it through the wall unmanned...but we'd have to stop first to set it up, and they'll have time to converge when they see something's up. Bet the barrier'd win that fight anyway."
"Hmm. Rigging it to go ahead without us wouldn't work as well if you'd have to stop the car first, either."
"True, but we could still do it. It's a solid wall, we could head out of sight the other way after setting the car loose."
"Not a bad idea, but..." Her voice trailed off, and she stared out to the side for a couple seconds. "Great, that's our observer," she said sarcastically.
Cyborg spared a glance in her direction. A fair distance away, the sight of a pumpkin rising over the top edge of a building was easy to see. Partially because the light of the full moon was enough to make the orange apparent, but mostly because the width of the gourd was nearly equal to that of the building it was scaling.
"Whoa...That one of those things you and Starfire were fighting?"
"Sure looks like one, but they weren't that big," she responded, sounding unduly apprehensive.
"Relax," he reassured her, "what's it going to do all the way over there?"
As if in reply, a dark green blur flashed in the space between the giant pumpkin and the nearly identical adjacent building. Followed by a crash loud enough to be heard even over the engine, as the oversized vine ripped through that adjacent roof with an upward angle, hurling chunks of architecture and HVAC material into the air.
Cyborg's years of experience of catching football passes quickly estimated the landing area and travel time of the debris, while his years of driving experience determined his location at that same time.
The two intersected far too much for his liking.
"THAT! HOLD ON!" he exclaimed, slamming the gas pedal to the floor, hoping to escape another crushing ordeal. He rapidly alternated his gaze between the road and the quickly approaching salvo, refusing to be distracted by the idle purple glow encircling Jinx's hand.
Flurries of motion and dust, accompanied by a cacophony of thuds, decorated the view in the side mirror. A concrete boulder rolled through in front of them, thankfully too far ahead for a collision. A steel girder seemed about to collide with them directly, before Jinx's readied hex rendered it into crumbling rust, falling behind them like industrial snow.
And the assault was past. Cyborg let out a relieved sigh with a breath he didn't remember holding. Suddenly he glanced back at the wreckage with a critical eye. He then hit the brakes, the tires squealing from the intensity as he firmly adjusted to their attempt to swerve wildly.
"What the hell are you doing?" Jinx demanded.
"We needed a new hole in the barrier," Cyborg said as he turned the car around now that it was slow enough to maneuver. "We got one!"
"...fine," she eventually responded. "Just...try not to get us crushed or impaled."
"I hear ya!"
The giant chunk of concrete that plowed through the side wall seconds ago had enough momentum to roll straight through the opposite divider; its absence in the mirror was what had sparked Cyborg's inspiration. He considered it very fortunate, as it would be quite an obstacle if it was stuck on the road. As it was, he had ample room to slip through the gap at a reasonably safe angle.
Not that slipping through the side headed towards the giant pumpkin was the safest plan. But he was committed to finding an actual solution to this vegetable nightmare, and the lack of comment from Jinx told him she was equally determined.
He turned the car to the right at the next intersection, taking them north, before accelerating. "I'm taking recommendations," he prompted.
"That pumpkin went somewhere, it was steady on top of the building 'til we turned. These one-story buildings aren't going to hide us."
"Find taller buildings on the left?"
"Yeah. And keep your eyes open, I've had enough of WHAT THE—"
He didn't need to ask, as a three-story-tall set of four gigantic vines walked into view ahead of them, sporting a giant pumpkin at the top. Shortly before breaking into a charging run in their direction.
"Hold on! Again!" Cyborg yelled, slamming on the brakes and making a controlled spin. Tires squealed as the car rotated clockwise, with an oversized gourd he had to assume was enraged quickly approaching.
Three quarters of a full turn later he switched off the brakes and put the pedal to the metal on the accelerator side, sending the car careening down a side street a mere second away from being overrun.
"That the same one as before?" he yelled.
"No, that one was much too big to fit between these buildings," Jinx loudly replied over the roar of the engine.
Cyborg furrowed his brow, relaxing the pressure on the accelerator as he mentally balanced the need for speed with the need for maneuverability. This wasn't the T-Car, he couldn't count on all the high-performance tweaks this convertible didn't have. And running into a solid object would end their trip real quick. His November had barely started, it'd be a shame for it to end now.
"Did it back up that quickly, or is a different one following us?" Jinx asked, as Cyborg's wobbling side mirror confirmed the presence of a mostly orange shape. "Wait, is it gaining on us?"
That, Cyborg couldn't tell through the mirror. He glanced back, using his integrated rangefinder to gather some estimates. Hard to get a smooth reading with both the car and the pumpkin moving, but it was averaging around 600 feet. He looked at the speedometer, presently around 60mph. He glanced at the pumpkin again, averaging...570 feet now?
"Sure is!" he exclaimed as he directed his gaze forward, looking for a reasonably open block. He spotted a gap in the series of upright towers in the distance, on the left, presumably a parking lot. "Hold on! Still!" he added, as he mentally calculated where he'd need to start a wide turn.
"You can quit saying 'hold on', I got it already!" she yelled.
Tires squealed as he turned the steering wheel hard left. The bump as the tires cleared the curb to pass through the block was jarring, but the car remained running with no immediate indications of structural damage. The parking lot itself was fortunately only holding a few other vehicles, none of them in a position to interfere with his maneuver.
It was incredibly risky, making the turn before he had any chance to see if something was in the way, but the non-zero chance of getting lucky was better than his odds against the overgrown pursuer.
"It's slowing," Jinx commented about that very pursuer while Cyborg smoothed out the turn, leaving them traveling along the cross street he'd aimed for. "Guess it can't turn at full trot."
"Well that was exciting," Cyborg commented sarcastically. "Hope we can get away from it before it comes after us..."
Cyborg's train of thought was derailed by the appearance of the giant pumpkin on the street several blocks in front of them. Or was it..."Did that thing jump all the way over here?"
Jinx looked back. "No," she answered, "that one's still back there, coming after us!"
"There's two of these things?"
"At least two!"
Cyborg tried to think, quickly. To no avail. "I'm outta ideas, what you got?"
"Floor it, hope it flinches and can't grab us."
The pumpkin in front of them suddenly lowered its "head" close to the ground, and shoved the two nearer vines through the pavement with a crack loud enough to heard clearly over the car's engine. It then pried up the entire street, the edges of the pavement crumbling as it was lifted by two vines that looked too spindly for the amount of force required.
"FLOOR IT!" she screamed.
Cyborg yelled in frustration and determination as he slammed the accelerator down, not having any plan beyond "she better have a plan". The only things he could rely on were that they couldn't turn or they'd get pulverized against the side of a building, and they couldn't slow down or they'd be entangled by some monster vine and get pulverized anyway.
Apparently, Jinx had noticed a detail Cyborg didn't: the way the street was being pried out of the earth left its end pointing directly skyward. As the car became airborne, an abortive swipe of a vine was visible in a ground-facing side mirror. They'd escaped from the pumpkins. Briefly.
But now gravity had become a threat in its own right. Cyborg turned his head to yell at his passenger, figuring it would be a fitting use of his last couple seconds of pumpkin-free-or-living existence, but to his surprise she had managed to remove her seat belt and was now kneeling on the newly-horizontal back of the seat, staring away and downwards.
Cyborg wasted no time looking in the same direction on his side of the car. He saw rooftops slowly floating away, as gravity countered their upward speed. But that he could actually see the tops of roofs told him all he needed to know: They were above the buildings. And certainly within landing range of the girl who could fill even ninja with feelings of inadequacy.
"Jump!" she commanded.
Glancing back at her wasn't the best idea, but it was instinct and already done by the time he realized it was a mistake. In any case, she was gone, noticeable only as a twirling blur in the air.
But he had no time. Hurriedly he ripped the seat restraints, punched off the door and used all his musculature against the car. This gave him a good push, and of course no one would be able to recognize the car as being a car when it hit the ground, to say nothing of recognizing the damage he'd just caused.
As he moved through the sky, air rushing in his face and orange dots far below, he found himself envying how Robin could have pulled off a jump at least as well as Jinx did, or how Beast Boy would just turn into a bird of some sort for a few seconds, or how Raven and Starfire could hover as easily as he could run. How did he end up being the one in the air?
His jump wasn't enough to make it to the rooftop. Instead he crashed through a window, then through a couple floors, until a copy machine broke his fall. He groaned in pain, rubbing his head in hopes the disorientation would subside quicker.
The muffled sound of a large crash out the window managed to get his attention. The view out the window was dominated by an office building, which was shaking slightly. Two giant pumpkins came into view, apparently having jumped from the street below, and hitting the top of that office building, side by side. Followed by the two floating to the ground amidst a thunderous crunch as the building toppled over.
Fortunately it was falling away from the building he was in, but then there was another loud crash, and the rattling of windows all around, accompanying what felt like a single tremor from a mild earthquake. Every couple seconds this happened again, the apparent tremor getting milder and the noises softer each time.
It took a little while for Cyborg to realize what was going on. The buildings were falling over in a row, like oversized dominoes. But why'd they knock over the first building? It made no sense to him.
Then he realized, the car had been moving straight up. So if he was in this building, Jinx would have landed on...
Oh no.
He opened the channel to her communicator. "Jinx, come in!" he said.
No response.
"You OK?"
No response.
"Answer me!"
No response.
"Jinx?"
No response.
He sighed sadly and shook his head, as he closed the channel. So he was alone. Again.
The sudden sound of shattering glass accompanied an oversized, leafy vine crashing through the window, headed into the corner of whatever room this was supposed to be. He rolled off the wreckage of the copy machine right as the vine swept through, pushing what was left of it through another window.
He got to his feet and busted straight through the wall, looking for a way out of the building.