Chapter 10
hostile intentions
Beat counted down the last seconds before the two rudies along with several other bladers invade a building on the east side of town. "3, 2, 1," Beat counted out in English, he moved his hand to signal for the small cell to move out. Three bladers grinded down the length of the wall of the building to stop people from entering or exiting from the base of the building while the rest came from the top of the building sweeping down looking for their targets. This had been the third mission and the team was slowly working their way down the capitol hill. Beat thought back to the instructions he was given. They were to kidnap three people from this building. One was the leader of this little gang that has connections to all three gangs and linked to Train who had ambitions to control the whole city.
Beat signaled for the team to split up using his hands then signaled for them to use smoke bombs if they encounter a large group. Three bladers split from the main group their in-line's making little noise against the carpeted floors they rolled over. The three stopped in an office room that was attached to the warehouse below them. "Its clear," whispered one blader with a black bandana over his head. The three closed the gap slowly to the door leading to the warehouse. The door ended in a length of stairs that zigzagged down to the bottom floor.
"I don't see any of the people we are supposed to get here either, and only 2 other entrances into that room as well." The girl blader pulled the small bag she carried and pulled out three smoke bombs.
"There are 12 people in the room, we are lucky, that is most of the gang, that means the three targets are most likely in one place having a meeting right now." said the third blader. The bandana blader nodded and the girl threw the bombs into three different locations. When the targets split to investigate the smoke closest to them, the 3 person team moved out. The bandana wearer grinded a wall to another wall to land in the smoke and quickly took out the bladers there with consecutive kicks and punches. The girl grinded the hand rails to a smoke bomb and knocked out her three opponents quickly with an elbow to the neck, two to the gut and one to the face. The third grinded his hand rail and landed on the ground in a low skating position and passed the three foot clearance under the semi-truck that was blocking his way to the last smoke bomb and quickly put down his opponents that were there waiting with kicks to the legs followed by a single fist to each of their faces. All three came to the center of the room when all the smoke dissipated, and looked at the bodies that were laying unconscious. "That was easy!" said the girl blader sweetly.
"Idiot, go check outside and see if the others are ok, signal them that our target is not in the warehouse." The girl nodded and the remaining two bladers explored the last exit the warehouse had. When they confirmed that no one was in it. they joined their friend outside and waited for their cell leader "Beat" to come up with a success.
Beat looked up at the ceiling and back to the hall of locked doors. Beat grind sweetly at Gum and said before she could protest, "Gum, I need you to move into the air duct and see which room our targets are in." Beat whispered. Gum nodded blushing slightly as she realized she would be mooning her panties at Beat for a few seconds. Beat lifted her up to the ceiling and pushed her into the air duct above them. After a minute, Gum came back with a red nose and raised her hand showing four fingers and mouthed out, "The fourth room down. Its locked, I'll unlock after a smoke bomb." Beat nodded and the bladers walked on their in-lines towards the fourth door.
"Sonovabitch!" Beat felt his stomach turn in knots as he heard several loud shouts and a thud against the door before the latch to the deadbolt can unlocked. Gum's face was very red as she said, "They are all out. We got all three in one hit. I am soo not going to go through another air duct."
"Why?" Beat looked down at all three men and saw one of them had a stupid smile on his face.
"Two words, 'ass first'." she replied quickly, her face turning a darker red.
Beat smiled and shook his head, "I'll remember that when we get to the next site. Lets go we are ahead by ten minutes it will be good to get a jump on the next targets. You four tie them up and call for pick up. The other down stairs are already tied up." Gum and Beat skated as fast as they could towards the stair well that was the buildings fire escape and grinded the length of the handrails to the bottom floor. The two rudies skidded to a halt at the exit of the building where three bladers form their team were ready to move to the next building a mile south. "Mission successful. Were there anyone who had time to send out a call for help?"
"No, we struck fast enough that most didn't know what was happening." said Jordan as he finished the last of the binding of the outside guards.
Beat smiled and nodded, "Everything is done here, we got four more missions to go! Lets move!" The cell leader looked at the path they would take, it lead along a winding road down the steep hill side. Beat smiled when he thought of having to hit this place any place other than first. Beat set a fast pace for the rest of the team that lead them to grind power lines at a steady angle.
"Beat!" one of the bladers behind him shouted as she tried to move a little faster to be next to him. "We had a shift in plans, I am to take Jordan's place in the next mission."
Beat nodded and asked with out turning towards her, "What happened? An injury?"
The girl blader named Jasmine almost nodded and then realized that he would not see it and said aloud, "Yes, the team on the out side had a little trouble with the external enforcers guarding the building."
"Ok, Is it going to be any different from how Jordan was going to handle the distraction?" Jordan's original job was to flood the next building with smoke bombs.
"No change, I am heading out now." She gave a thumbs up sign that completely countered her shaking lip and nervous eyes. Jasmine jumped from the wire she was grinding to another power line that had a steeper angle and went through trees down the mountain side. Beat saw her exit and smiled another genuine smile as she easily maneuvered around branches and debris on that path. This is the second time I smiled about this mission, I better stop before I get to the last mission with the same stupid grin as that guy that had Gum knocked out. Now that he had passed her entry line he was able to see the path the girl needed to take to get ahead of them. Beat sighed shook his head, he had seen her grind the pipes in the final test. While she had plenty of imagination to go around obstacles she still lacked presence of mind and confidence to do things that would make her stand out as a great blader. Jordan was chosen for this assignment because the route he needed to take was not only difficult but almost impossible but for a few. Now that Beat saw the path he wondered if he could navigate that obstacle course that went directly down the sloping mountain instead of the winding wires he was leading his team on now.
Gum spoke up when he examined the way, "You think she will be ok?" Beat snapped out of his concentration and jumped form one line to another, flying over a house that the line connected to.
"Yes, its us I worry about, when she hits those bombs her job is done, ours is the hard part. This will be tough simply because of the ruthlessness of this next gang." Beat bit his lip while considering what he would most likely need to do. "Lets speed up so we can organize at the foot of the hill before moving to the next building."
Jasmine dodged several branches. She could see the full length of the path and timed her self along with the obstacles. Grind. jump left! jump high! duck down! jump!
The girl had been a blader for a long time but had never done something like this that placed a lot of pressure to perform well down this path to be ahead of the rest of the team. I can do this! She said happily as she cleared the last of the trees and now had to worry about the lack of places to grind with out falling.
Jasmine jumped from the roof of one house to grind along the crest of another for only the barest of a second before she became airborne again. She performed trick after trick to keep her timing and her body in a good gyration to be able to recover he balance and pick of her speed easily. She cleared the last of the roofs that ended the last part of the hill. "I did it!" she said out loud not quite believing herself. She gave herself a stern shook and sprinted towards the hangar and the rats she had to smoke out.
The group abandoned the power lines and rolled off roofs of houses, not caring of the people they disturbed that were sleeping below them. They approached the next building that was a air hangar. The team regrouped and saw Jasmine throw smoke bomb after smoke bomb into the building forcing the occupants out. Beat nodded to Gum and pointed out the next leader. This target had been paying several of Jules men to gain access to police records so he could black mail several people holding public offices. Beat wasn't prepared for the number of people coming out armed with what every they had handy. The group looked more like an old Japanese school gang, than the gangs he has seen since he got here. Beat licked his lips and said, "Everyone listen, there are too many to fight. Everyone zone in on the leader! Do not let him escape, if we can capture the leader we win, its as simple as that. Now move!"
The cell moved at once. The group split into 4 groups of four. The four groups circled the bladers, forcing them to move closer together with flame bombs and moving the leader towards the center where all members of Beats' team knew where he was. The groups charged into the mass of bladers who had knives, pipes and chains. Beat saw two of his group go down as he approached the center. Beat heard a scream as another blader on the opposite side of him went down from a combination of pipes and chains. Beat blocked out all noises of teammates and enemies and locked onto the smirking leader who was laughing at the small group that was attacking them. None of the enemy realized what the goal of this attack was. Beat smashed the face of a near by enemy blader and stole his knife. When he saw a line open slightly towards his target he kicked his skates alive. The sudden burst of speed and the explosion behind it knocked off the surrounding enemies and Beat caught his target in an instant. Beat threw his arm around the mans' shoulders and forced the leaders' neck close to the stolen knife. "Tell your men to stop fighting. You got to the count of three." said Beat calmly while his ears were pounding blood threw small veins. He emphasized the threat with pressing the knife against the mans neck drawing a sliver of blood. Beat breathed, "one, two, thre-"
"PUT YOUR WEAPONS DOWN NOW!" the mans neck was sweating and his face was a pale white. Gum and two other bladers one, from each group joined up with Beat all with a weapon drawn on him. The men quickly realized what happened and looked tempted to gang up on the group holding their leader hostage. Beat smiled coldly, "If you think about it I will kill him, then there is no point in keeping any of you alive."
As he said it, reinforcements appeared from the trees. Forty bladers surround the gang all holding their own weapons . The men placed down their weapons and laid down on the floor as Gum had instructed them. Three men from the group of reinforcements approached Beat while he tied up the leader.
"Your ahead of schedule, your team was not supposed to do this mission alone." Terra, one of the other leaders, said slightly annoyed.
"Sorry guys I know I was really stupid but I think we need to move faster than what we originally agreed on." said Beat his voice a little shaky and a pale look on his face after what he had to do to stop the fighting immediately.
"What is that?" asked Mike. He was the youngest leader on Jules Team but more skilled at tactics than the rest of the team.
"Well, I had a hunch on the way down here and it proved right." Beat pointed to the weapons the gang had. "If the smoke bombs happened as a surprise attack they would not have had weapons beside them as they ran out of the hangar. They would all have had nothing but their fists. That in itself would have made this mission a lot easier. I think that having all these gangs stop communicating at once is what is alarming the various gangs. Not us just silencing their communications."
Jim the third leader nodded in understanding. "I'll spread word about the problem to other teams, telling them to not just shut down communications but to send one or two messages to different gangs to see if they had heard from gangs we had already captured."
"O.k. now since that problem is out of the way, how are we doing with time. I got 6 people injured from my little stunt." Beat looked at his team apologetically.
"We are still moving ahead of schedule. Jules should be holding control of both free flyers and ghost territory by now since we control all of High Row territory."
Terra spoke up, "Has any one heard a word from Z-ro?" Beat shook his head in concern.
"We can't worry about him now, I am sure he is fine. Beat, I got my team split and both of them went ahead to take over your last assignments, Jules would expect you and Gum to move on ahead of us. We have many of the other targets captured and waiting for police to claim them." Beat nodded and waved Gum over. "Gum we are moving ahead, our team needs a rest, and these guys can split the last of the missions." Gum nodded. "We'll meet you guys at the victory celebration tomorrow! Bye guys." said Beat cheerfully.
The members of his cell and the other cell leaders waved them a quick goodbye as they turned towards downtown. "Gum this might be a little painful if we open our jets to full throttle but I don't think we have a choice, its a long way."
"I know" she smiled nervously. She had never skated at full throttle before but knew her feet burned a lot at three-fourths throttle. Beat knelt and began to mess with the small netrium engine on each inline skate. Gum said, "ready" after she stood up and brushed dirt from her knees. Beat nodded and they both took off. Their skates roaring with noise of burning netrium.
Z-ro had been used to doing things on his own for most of his life. But now that he was a G.G. he found it hard to work and be alone in anything he did. This mission was decidedly put on him since he new the entire city in and out along with his skills as both a blader style skating and a rudies' style of navigating. "Heh, looks like everyone is already on alert here, damn this is going to be annoying." Z-ro unclipped to small balls of dough and started grinding down a power line as fast as he could. The bladers guarding the entrance to the building already spotted him. Z-ro simply smiled as he flicked his thumb over the dough and threw it below him as he passed the two guards. There was a small sizzle before a blinding flash of light enveloped all three of them.
"My eyes!" shouted one of the bladers.
Z-ro was already inside the building and headed for the garage in the back. Several other guards came out of a door and rushed at him as he sped through the hall way. Z-ro jumped and grinded the wall then kicked two of them in the head as he passed by. "Come on guys your so slow!" Cackled Z-ro.
The rudie managed to dodge several other bladers all I'll equipped to handle the speedy intruder. When he came to the garage, he plowed over a final guard and whistled. There sat hundreds of wooden crates filled with what he was told to destroy. The Ghost's armory. Z-ro skated around to make sure this was it and nodded with satisfaction that this was probably most of what the Ghost had in possession. He kicked the guard awake. He took out the seven caned bomb from his bag and said while playing with it "Hey Mr. I am about to blow this up. so you might want to run."
With that he threw the bomb behind him. The guard saw teh bomb go through the air and ran for his life. "Why you running so fast? I haven't started it yet!" he called after him. The bomb landed among the other bombs and cache of assorted weapons that had been banded in the city. "well that is a good place as any." Z-ro took out a knife with a piece of paper wraped around it and lit the end of it. "we so long weapons too bad i don't have a camera this one is going to be bigger than the last one."
Z-ro grinned and walked out of the room threw the knife piecing one of the cans letting the paper soak up the liquids slowly up the paper to the flame at the end of the knife. Z-ro saw that the guard must have spread the word since no one else was in the building. When he skated out, he passed many of the guys he had kicked around a few minutes before. They were about to attack him when the whole building exploded up throwing them all teen feet. The rudie was the only one to land on his feet and made is exit. Z-ro laughed as he made a safe clearance to a roof top before saying. "Damn they must had had more on another level that was two explosions. Well that is 3 armories in 2 hours. Who knew I could be such a good arsonists?" He said gleefully before remembering he had to make it downtown to corner off the final leader. His brothers' third in command, Train.