Driving the stolen truck, Theodore fled with Lila and Al, while trying to avoid collision with other drivers, as Al attempted to pinpoint the person responsible for this, while Lila sat in her spot, rubbing her neck after the man nearly crushed her throat with his bare hand.
It was difficult because of it, but Lila felt how ungodly cold his hand was, like she's was being handled by a sentient pack of meat from the grocery store, it was hard for her to believe that this man was human, and Al confirmed this by saying, "He's not dead, look!"
In the rear-view mirror, Lila sees a smaller pickup truck zooming through traffic, nearly ran into people as it's speeding up towards them, and once it was close enough, Lila sees the man driving, unaffected by being launched nearly 6ft in the air by Theodore.
"Al, where's the woman?" Theodore had to ask the question as he's trying to drive responsibly, but trying to escape the truck slamming into them from behind's not making it any easier, causing Al to respond, "Uh, I don't… know…"
Silence in the cab of the truck until they're immediately assaulted by the woman slamming her fists her into the roof of the truck, enough force to push her way in, causing Lila to hunker into her spot, dodging the inward dents.
Theodore's keeping his hands firmly on the wheels, trying to duck as the woman above them continuously hammered the roof of the truck, trying to weaken it enough for her to tear through.
Concluding that they're not dealing with normal humans and further confirmed by Al as he says the man and woman couldn't been human, leading Theodore to ask what they are exactly.
"My scanners are saying they have similar markings to…" Al trailed at the end, unable to finish his sentence when the truck roof's torn open like a can of sardines by the woman, her dark eyes narrowing on them.
Haphazardly, Lila grabbed her knife from the safety of her boot, opened it, and when the woman tried reaching in for them, Lila stabbed the knife through her hand.
However, the woman didn't react in pain or shock, just a dull expression, and without a reaction, kept trying to reach for them with the knife sticking through the palm of her hand, while Lila and Theodore ducked.
Theodore's icy blue eyes darted between her and the road, trying to keep them from getting into an accident, before seeing a bridge with a low clearance, coming up ahead, and when the chance came, he stepped on the pedal to the point of touching the floor, speeding the truck through the underpass, the low clearance got the woman before she could even move.
Traffic became backed up because of the sight, so it gave Theodore time to reroute away from them, enough that it gave them time to think.
He slowed the truck, to a crawl, before stopping entirely, looking up at the damages done by the woman.
"Al, what are they?" Theodore asked him again as he sat in the seat, shocked at the sight of the roof, turn apart like nothing, barely any blood dripped from the woman's hand, yet there was a pinprick sample for him to test, before saying, "It's all weird, but there's at least two indicators of the hundreds that, they're… tyrants."
Al went through the scanners' multiple times, even with the small blood drop, the same indicators tripped them, the man and woman were tyrants, worse, they're not the same as Annika, but she could've had a breakthrough in her desires of recreating her species with unwitting humans as the vehicle.
Hearing this, Theodore's shocked, before Lila says, "You don't think…?"
Maybe she was right, they never saw Annika's body, and she was the only tyrant they knew that wanted to expand her dying race.
"I killed her; I know I did!" Theodore couldn't believe that Annika survived the house fire and explosions, but Lila reminded him of their previous adventures, nothing's ever what it seems.
The thought that Annika survived sickened Theodore as he's in disbelief that his plan failed, but Al says it wasn't his fault, things happen.
"Now, we know what they are, how do we get rid of them?" Lila asks Al for his opinions on dealing with these tyrants, and Al pondered before quickly saying, "Oh, trust me, I'm looking up ways, now!"
Unfortunately, things went awry, as they do, and the truck chasing them swerved into their lane, having slammed through traffic, gaining on them, causing Theodore to drive once again.
"Al, can you find Annika?" Theodore asks Al if he can find her, since he would've had the details stowed away, and Al says he can, but he thinks something's wrong, he's not sure, but he can't quite shake the feeling that it wasn't Annika.
Nothing in the databases says she made an appearance since the incident and with everything technologically advanced, there's now ay for her to hide, much less keep abducting people for her experiments without police finding out.
The jolt of the truck slamming into the side of theirs, Theodore clutched the wheel tightly as he felt their truck swerving,.
Al peaked through the passenger window, seeing the man and the woman looking at them with a scowl.
"Oh yeah, I think they're mad!" Al winced at the sight before turning his head, giving Theodore directions while he's searching for Annika.
The scanners weren't picking her up, but in seconds of changing settings, Al says he got her, she's somewhere back in the warehouse district, in one of the warehouses with rooftop access.
"Kid, you think you can deal with her?" Al asks if Theodore's capable of dealing with Annika on his own and he says that he could, in theory, causing Al to persuade him to find her, he and Lila can deal with Thing One and Thing Two.
Lila looked with shock in her eyes before shouting, "Are you out of your circuits?"
Weakly shrugging, Al says it was a good idea, and he can protect her, now that the statue's destroyed, thus preventing them from disabling him, once again.
"How are we going to do that?" Lila balked at the thought before Al convinced her, in between the truck operated by the man and woman slamming into them, trying to drive them into a wall, before Lila saw his point.
Nodding, Lila mustered, "Sure, I watched enough horror movies, I can pick my own adventure."
On Al's command, Theodore opened a rift beside him, once Al counted down, Lila took over the truck while Theodore slipped into a rift, taking him elsewhere.
"I hope you have an idea, man," Lila stared with fright in her eyes as Al gave her directions while avoiding the assaulting truck kept up with them.
Al's eyes darted back and forth while running preliminary scans, before saying, "I got some ideas. You won't like them, but I have ideas."
The thought of those ideas weren't helping Lila, but Al foist her anyway.
Listening to his directions while avoiding on-coming traffic and the assaulting truck, Lila felt like she was stunt doubling in a movie, with the way the trucks swerved, one avoiding the other, the other trying to drive into them.
The man and woman weren't afraid of hurting themselves, the way they're going about trying to push Lila into a barrier or another driver on the road, proving they're well-aware what they are, and knew what they're capable of doing, the problem's if they knew what they're incapable of, which Al's searching for as he guiding Lila.
Their driving's getting the attention of the authorities, they're trying to stop the trucks from going further, trying to push them into pit maneuvers, and at the end of the long stretch, there's a blockade.
Cue Al's first part of the plan, having Lila dive out of the truck while it's still driving, on his command, and reappearing elsewhere due to him opening an artificial rift for her to fall into.
Difference between the two, the artificial rifts close quicker, since they tend to upset the balance of powers more than what Theodore does on a given, and it's good enough that the man and woman wouldn't be able to follow them for a spell while they worked out the details.
Reappearing in a different part of the city, the blue tint in the air's bright, no sun in sight, and Lila can't see the distinction, as there's no bright neon lights from the signs to cut through it.
"Okay, now, from my preliminary searching, I narrowed it down to a few things," Al's quick to get Lila on the same page while they had a breather from the man and woman. "Can't set them on fire or go Rambo on their asses, else, y'know, we get surrounded by the cops, and can't talk our ways out of it. I was thinking, using something unconventional."
It wouldn't be pretty, obviously, but given their options in the city, they didn't have much of a choice, and so Al concluded they had to do what they can with what they have around them.
Ergo, they're going to use the environment against the man and woman.
Gesturing as his bright polka dotted puffy shirt crumpled, Al tells Lila, "We trick them into getting into the positions, then bam!"
He makes it sound so easy and Al swears it'll be easy.
Once they deal with them, they won't have trouble handling Annika since she doesn't have help.
"Fine, what's the plan?" Lila wanted to know what Al had in mind and Al gave her the details while keeping his eyes focused as he lead Lila to the places he wanted to lure the man and woman.
He likened it to the horror classic, 'Final Destination,' where elaborate plans from Death's playbook caused the deaths of those that escaped their fates.
"If I see Tony Todd somewhere in this, we have serious issues, my friend," Lila flinched at the thought hat with everything they've been through, the one thing to break the camel's back's the emergence that Tony Todd is among attendance in this bizarre adventure.
Al reminds her, "I don't think he actually was death."
Well, maybe he is, maybe he isn't, point is, too much on the plate as it is, let's not overfill it.
Following his plans, Lila went around the corner, avoiding the open, people, as she hears sirens overhead from the wreck caused by the speeding truck running into the barriers placed by police.
Al's covering her so they don't get stopped by the cops, so they have that, however he doubted the man and woman cared much about the police.
Disappeared to ensure the plan's working, Al returned as he stopped Lila near another vehicle, just a Nissan, but Al prompted her to get inside, and she did, while Al worked his magic, overriding the Nissan, and Lila's able to start driving it without the alarms going off.
Sorry, friend, but your Nissan's for a good cause, even though Lila bemoaned the owner being a Broncos fan.
"Okay, we're going to get rid of them one at a time," Al appeared in the passenger side, telling Lila how they're handling this situation. "You got the woman pretty good, so she's reassessing the situation. The man, though, I think he's got it in him to try the same thing."
While they're experimented on, Al theorized they're still human to a degree, that even though the woman didn't react to the knife sticking through her palm visibly, doesn't mean internally.
The man's got a score to settle, so while the woman rebounds, he's going to come after them, Al made sure of this, because he personally leaked their location to him, with hopes he takes the bait.
"And if he doesn't?" Lila inquired what then as she drove the Nissan through traffic while Al directed her and Al affirmed that the man's coming for them, he's sure of it.
That said, he's got eyes in every corner of the city, making sure that none of the tyrants escaped after Theodore, whom's on the move, searching for Annika.
As Al sat in the passenger side while he kept his scanners going on blast, he sees the look on Lila's face, before comforting her, "I'm sure Kira led a fruitful life, kid."
Shaking her head, her matted chestnut hair stiffly moved, Lila responded, "Why do I get this feeling I'm going to have a sour taste in my mouth, then?"
The reappearance of the tyrants and the fact that Al thinks it's the work of Annika, who somehow survived the gambit despite Theodore's efforts, it doesn't bode well for Kira.
"Adventures aren't always straightforward, kid, you know that," Al reminds her that while she wanted the best for Kira, things happen, and for reasons that seem unfair.
Part of the game, unfortunately.
Nodding, Lila responded that she knows, as Al helped her prepare for the ploy for getting rid of the man first.
The math checked out, all they needed to do's something stupid.
"Don't we always?" Lila brought up before Al waved his hand disparagingly and the plan commenced with Al counting by the minute.
Felt like a horror movie where she knew the killer's coming and the man came without hesitation, this time, in a stolen police cruiser that Lila hesitated on asking how he obtained it.
Sped through the stretch of road, thankfully with the accident further back, the road's emptied of cars, as the cruiser sped through like a bat out of hell.
Al's correct, the woman's elsewhere, it's just the man for the moment.
"Now, when I tell you, you're going to have to break like it's your first-year driving!" Al instructed Lila on how he wanted her to stop the moment he says, timing it right, the man wouldn't be able to escaped in time and he's going flying.
When it was pointed out that the man drove a police cruiser, Al waved it off, saying he planned everything.
He's got all his brainpower focused on this.
Sucking air through her teeth, Lila did as told by Al, continued to drive until she sees the police cruiser getting dangerously close to the back of the Nissan, on Al's orders, she stopped suddenly.
As Al said, the man didn't have a chance to swerve or stop, slammed in the back of the Nissan, so hard, he flew out of the cracked windshield, onto the back of the Nissan.
The airbags didn't go off, from Al's tampering, but he made sure that Lila's safe for the most part, prepared to undo his tampering, if need be, but now's the next part.
Lila sped off with the man on the back of the Nissan, clinging to it with a vice grip, unfazed, as he stared through the cracked back window.
With one fist, he punched out the back window, trying to enter the Nissan, stopped because of Lila's purposefully terrible driving, it caused him to prioritize gripping to the Nissan.
Only for a moment, however, as he attempted to climb on top of the Nissan, punching through the top of the roof like it's aluminum, getting a firm grip while making his way towards the driver's side.
Didn't learn the first time, it'd seem, and Al counted on it, to the letter, before he guided Lila to a street ahead that's a dead end with parked cars on the side.
"Now!" Al instructed Lila, as she suddenly stopped the Nissan, short of the stop sign.
The man, who tried to keep his grip in the roof of the car, flew into the air once again, but as he's falling, a perfectly timed garbage truck's parked at the end of his fall, and he's unable to stop himself as he fell precisely into the back of the garbage truck, filled with garbage and what else.
Dazed by the airbag set off by the sudden stop since Al reinstated it, Lila groggily recovered as Al ushered her out of the Nissan, before leading her to the garbage truck that remained stationary, parked.
Inside the garbage truck, they're hearing the man slicing through bags worth of trash, trying to get out, before Al controlled the garbage truck remotely.
Couldn't see where they're standing, all Lila heard's the grind of the machinery as it's crunching the trash bags, glass shattering, the sounds of the man frantically slicing through the trash, trying to escape.
The sound of the machinery catching something in the teeth, the groan as it's trying to process the trash, Al saying it's the man fighting the teeth, as his arm's stuck in the teeth.
Disturbingly, he didn't cry out or beg, silence, except the groaning from the machinery.
Lila held reservation going this far trying to actively kill the man this way, before seeing the fist sized dent pushing outward on the side of the garbage truck in front of her, before Al overrode the safety protocols, and started crunching the man.
It wasn't gory, at least what Al stated, the man wasn't human anymore, the teeth of the garbage truck's machinery couldn't penetrate through the dense skin, still fatally mangled the man as he's taken on too much damage than acceptable, Al's sure he can't weasel his way out of the garage truck if he tried.
"Dead as Dillinger," Al assured Lila that the man's dead and before Lila wanted to say something about evidence and the potential of the man getting out alive, somehow, before she got her answer as behind them, the garbage truck erupted in a ball of fire, hot enough, that nobody's going to know there was a body inside.
Now, for the next article of their plan.
"What, going to launch her into a microwave and push the popcorn button?" Lila questioned Al's plans as he waved at the thought, saying the microwave isn't strong enough.