-6- TOWER
James and Taggart stopped their jeep in the middle of a thick fog tied to the arrival of morning. A tire had blown during their drive, and now the jeep was capable of only a snail's pace in speed. Taggart smacked his head on the steering wheel of the jeep in discouragement. James let his head drop back, shutting his eyes in equal discouragement.
Taggart balled a fist with his right hand and smacked the right edge of the steering wheel. He let out a long, deep sigh then began pounding the steering wheel with his fist. James looked at his friend, not commenting.
"We don't happen to have a spare tire in this thing, do we?" James asked with little hope in his voice. Without raising himself from the steering wheel, Taggart shook his head. James then flopped his body back against his seat of the jeep.
The jeep sunk slightly to the left with the failure of its front left tire. James noticed this, and then got out of the jeep. Taggart heard James exiting the vehicle and looked up. His friend was walking around to where the blown tire was located.
"Bad?" Taggart asked before his friend arrived at the tire. When James did, he knelt down to see the limp piece of rubber. There was a small fragment of concrete embedded in the wheel's upper section.
"Bad," James answered Taggart after examining the tire. He sighed and then walked back around the jeep and climbed back in.
"No point in getting back in this jeep now, James," Taggart told his friend. James smiled and shrugged.
"You want to sit on the ground, instead?" James offered jokingly. Taggart shrugged, and then turned himself forward and stared out into the white of the fog. James did the same, slouching a bit as he did.
There was complete silence. Occasional bits of dirt were kicked up by brief gusts of cold wind on the ground, but the extent of sound rarely rose above such small events.
Taggart panned his vision across where he was sitting, shaking his head. The two stared aimlessly into the emptiness, surrounded by silence and a lack of any activity.
"How did they do it?" James asked, breaking the quiet.
"Who?"
"The Villains. How did they destroy this city, the Hero Factory, and civilization as we knew it in one night?"
"Can we please not talk about the Villains?" Taggart asked James.
"Alright, alright," James conceded. "I just want to know how they did it." Fear began spreading over Taggart's face at the topic of discussion James had chosen. He was unable to put the thought of the Villains out of his mind.
"James," Taggart started. James lifted his head and looked at his friend. Taggart lifted his head, but stared out into the whiteness with the same expression of fear on his face.
"Do you think they're still here?" Both of them stood still after Taggart spoke those words. Taggart's light eyes darted all around, and James noticed his friend's agitation.
"James, answer me," Taggart pressed with urgency in his tone, turning to James and looking him in the eye. "Do you think they're still here?" James appeared as if he was about to answer, when he suddenly focused elsewhere. Taggart saw this and turned to where James was looking.
The two started looking out into the fog again. The fog around them was gradually beginning to pass. Slowly, distant objects from where their jeep sat were becoming visible as the low-lying clouds relented. James and Taggart twitched, looking in all directions at the world slowly revealing itself to them. The remnants of a thousand structures began appearing, and the defunct bodies of both citizens and Heroes alike littered the ground around the two. One of the closer bodies to their jeep was blackened and charred, the face of the body shriveled and squinting. A Hero body was lying next to that burnt body, its Hero Core completely dark. Taggart saw these two things and shuddered, looking away as he did.
As more and more of the fog lifted, a structure vastly larger than anything around James and Taggart began appearing in the distance. Gradually, the fog floated upward, revealing that this structure was also much higher than the rest of the ruins around them. Higher and higher, the fog lifted, until the top of this mighty building was visible. It was jagged and irregular, which contrasted heavily to the building's smooth and sleek exterior. A second chunk of similarly structured ruin appeared next to this large ruin, though it was smaller in size. James and Taggart looked at the smaller ruin, then the larger ruin.
"James," Taggart began again. "That's the Assembly Tower." Taggart's words were hoarse in whisper. The gazes of the two aimed themselves ever more upward as the clouds faded, revealing in its entirety the monster of all the ruins surrounding them. James and Taggart stared at the top of the tower for minutes, captivated.
"It was supposed to be indestructible," James remarked, shaking his head.
"Do you think they're still here?" Taggart repeated, this time with great fear in his voice.
"The Villains?"
"Yes, the Villains!" Taggart screamed the words. James hesitated before speaking.
"Well, uh…" he began, bailing out of finishing his sentence in front of his panicking friend. Taggart's eyes were beginning to bulge.
"Don't tell me you want to turn back now, Tag," James continued, throwing a stern glance at his friend.
Taggart looked back up at the top of the Assembly Tower ruins. James then placed his hand on his friend's shoulder, gave him a faint smile.
"'We're willing to take risks,' right?" James said, quoting Taggart's words from back at the bazaar in Makurotown. "We came here for Quaza, and we'll leave here with Quaza." James extended a finger to the Assembly Tower, continued, "We'll be rich after this, and then life will be good. It's going to be worth it."
James then quickly patted Taggart on the shoulder before sliding out of the jeep and onto the dirt ground below. Taggart watched his friend walk over to the jeep's supply hold. James unlocked the hold and removed his firearm he acquired at the bazaar. He pulled out his ammo box and set it on the ground, reaching back into the hold to pull out Taggart's supplies. When he pulled out Taggart's gun, he tossed it to his friend. Taggart caught the weapon clumsily, looking down at James. James then tossed Taggart's ball bearing box, and then picked up his own. James stared at Taggart from his standing position on the dirt ground, propping his gun against his shoulder.
"This jeep can't help us anymore, Tag," James said. Taggart sighed, and exited the vehicle himself with his equipment. He walked over to James, and the two stood facing each other.
"Sheesh, you're making this dramatic," Taggart accused James, a flash of a smile appearing on his face.
"I'm not the one freaking out, bub," James said with a smile of his own.