Hello there, my still favorite internet people,

here's part two. Cue the obligatory begging for comments. Okay, proceed.

Thank you and have fun

Lightning strike

With a little exhausted sigh Anderson pulled on her helmet, hoping that she wouldn't need her abilities for once and drove out of to the streets. She was greeted by a pitch-black overcast sky and the sounds of heavy rain, the occasional lightning illuminating the jagged skyline of the city, thunder echoing between the blocks. With the smell of petrichor itching in her nose, she merged onto the highway that would lead her to the Blessed Hand and her partner. The road was almost empty, at least in that particular direction, only the occasional super-heavy trucks, overburdened with cargo drove on the road, seemingly unstoppable like ironbound leviathans.

The storm worsened, the separate thunderstrikes fading one into the other, creating an almost constant rumbling and rain fell at an angle so acute it felt almost horizontal. Streams of water ran down Anderson's visor and splashed onto her face, the rain leaving an acidic aftertaste on her tongue. With a displeased sigh, she wiped away the rain running down her jaw and neck.

And in the next second all hell broke loose.

A blindingly bright light went on behind her, bullets sending out fountains of rainwater as they hit the liquid film that coated the road. Startled, Anderson looked back and made eye-contact with a bent arrow-like plow of an ash-grey SUV. More reflectors came on, illuminating the road as if it were the middle of the day, the roaring of engines ovelapping with the thunderstorm.

Without a second thought, Anderson revved up her bike and swerved, temporarily escaping from the line of fire. Again she noticed the stiffness of the vehicle's response and the suspicious vibrations spreading from the bike's rear quarter and cursed at herself that she didn't let anyone look at that. Letting her right hand off the handlebars, she commanded her bike's AI to ready the twin-canons and then drew her Lawgiver. A quick glance back showed that at least three more cars, all modified with illegal armouring and weaponry were following close behind, their headlights spilling together in the pouring rain.

A powerful blow just above the small of her back threw her forward and for a moment she lost the control over the bike, letting the vehicle swerve wildly with less that fifty percent of the wheels adhering to the road at any point in time. Once the bike miraculously managed to regain its grip on the asphalt, Anderson immediately threw away the hardly won stability and hit the brakes, geysers of rainwater shooting up from the locked-up wheels.

Shifting her weight, Anderson brought the Lawmaster to a controlled slide, letting the hind wheel oversteer, bringing the vehicle almost perpendicular to that of her attacker. The twin-canons barked, recoil threatening to off-set the fragile balance of the bike, and shredded the heavily armoured shell of the car in flashes of bright light.

The SUV, now an eviscerated metal corpse, decelerated rapidly and weered off to the side, ramming the front of the car driving beside it, sending them both into a violent break-away that ended in both vehicles looking like an amalgamation of modern art. A new stream of bullets hailed on the Judge as the other twocars managed to not get entangled in the spectacle. One had an auto-cannon crudely welded to its roof, the other a high-caliber machine gun, which was what worried her more, because while she was confident she could dodge the missiles, the torrent of bullets flying from the machine gun was virtually unavoidable.

Pressing herself to her bike to minimize her hitbox, Anderson carefully countersteered and straightened the bike out, increasing the distance between her and her pursuers. Just as she allowed herself a moment to breathe, a single powerful blow echoed from behind and a flower of blinding white flame sprang to life just few meters away.

Even though it wasn't hit by the full force of the explosion, the Lawmaster bucked like an untamed horse and leaped forward, almost overturning, but in the end managing to land on its wheels. A piercing cracking sound rose above the noise of the engines and Anderson was hurled against the handlebars, the wind knocked out of her. Fighting through pain and nausea she somehow managed to keep the bike on the road, hopelessly gunning the engine in an attempt to maintain the lead on the SUV's.

But, no matter how she tried, her vehicle began to steadily lose speed, the vibrations from the rear portion of the bike becoming alarmingly strong, and the steering hardly responded at all. Within few minutes the pursuing cars caught up to her, each pulling up on one side of her bike. Like a cat toying with a mouse the drivers slowly narrowed the gap between them, forcing Anderson to fight the unresponsive steering of her Lawmaster to avoid collision.

Cursing under her breath, Anderson realized that she was outnumbered, outgunned, and sadly, outmaneuvered as well. She knew she needed help, but driving the almost inoperable Lawmaster required all of her focus, preventing her from contacting the Hall and letting them know of her situation, at least the regular way. But in a spare second, where she could afford to let one hand off the handlebars, she quickly sent out a distress call which would hopefully result in some action.

The SUV on her left swerved towards her, forcing Anderson to slam the brakes. The damaged Lawmaster jerked forward and sideways, before the brakes finally locked up, the front wheel missing the right bumper of the SUV only by millimeters. The unsuccessful action obviously riled up her attackers because in the next moment bullets once again started flying, trapping the Judge in a cross-fire she wouldn't survive for more than few seconds.

Face to face with the prospect of dying, Anderson grasped the chance for a desperate last stand. Now that it didn't matter whether she crashed her bike, she let go of the handlebars and grabbed her Lawgiver. A round of bullets hit her across the back, mostly getting deflected by the armoured padding of Andeson's uniform, but one or two buried itself into her arm, almost causing her to drop her weapon, but she endured and fired several flares right in front of her, closing her eyes as she did so. From behind her closed eyelids the world seemed to flare up in the color of freshly spilled blood, before falling dark again. The bulletstorm died down almost immediately and when Anderson opened her eyes again she saw that both SUV's had broken their formation, one falling behind a little, the other one swerving off to the side.

She knew she didn't have much time for her next move, so she immediately moved onto the next phase. The machine gun equipped vehicle was the one to weer off to the side and was both closer and at a more convenient angle, so she moved in for the kill. With just a split second to aim, Anderson fired the better half of the armour-piercing ammunition into the black-tinted side window of the SUV. The hardened glass was dimensioned even for such barrage and held, though a spiderweb of fine cracks appeared on its surface.

Immediately after, Anderson sent out five Hi-Ex shots in rapid succession. She hit the cracked glass with three of them, the other two exploding on the armoused side, leaving behind scratched and sizzling metal, but no serious harm. The blast of the first shell to hit the side window was almost entirely deflected by the hardened glass, but nonetheless the shot did its job. The second was mostly deflected as well but this time the glass shattered and the third shell successfully flew inside. In the span of a millisecond, the car changed motion from grounded to airborne, blazing like a comet all the while.

Allowing herself a victorious smirk Anderson looked behind herself to assess the situation. The last remaining SUV was quickly catching up to her, not that it was something difficult, the auto-canon adjusting as it tried to lock-on to her position. Out of the corner of her eye Anderson noticed that the next exit ten kilometers away was for sector seventeen and the prospect of maybe losing the last SUV in the densely populate habitat seemed more than agreeable.

Gigantic dark silhouette appeared on the road before Anderson. For a moment the Judge tensed up, expecting another enemy, but it was just a super-heavy car hauler, fully loaded, steadily making its way in the pouring rain, unstoppable as if it was some kind of primordial force.

A round of bullets reflected off of Anderson's Lawmaster, adding another batch of marks to the already damaged vehicle. With a startled hiss, Anderson turned and sent back a few shots of her own, but none did harm since the driver of the last SUV did learn from the fate of his predecessors and kept himself at an angle where Anderson couldn't shoot unless she wanted to lose the last bit of control she still had over her bike. With a curse she holstered her, for the moment, useless weapon and instead focused on driving.

Once again a solitary blow echoed through the cold night air, followed by a shriek of thousands anguished souls, drowning the whole world in terrible noise. Anderson whipped around and was greeted by Armageddon. The car hauler was bathed in flames, the iron colossus rearing like a wounded animal, several pieces of its cargo falling on the asphalt below. With horror Anderson watched on as the driver obviously panicked and swerved, the damaged behemoth tipping on its side, causing a tidal wave of rainwater to run along the road, and began sliding, the rear half oversteering until it ultimately spanned across almost the entire width of the highway, obliterating the median barrier in the process. Anderson could feel the revolting taste of deathly panic as the driver was hurled from his seat through the windshield, his scream of terror ending abruptly and forever as he made contact with the ground.

Immediately Anderson slammed the brakes and countersteered, intending to doing a one-eighty. And even though she was prepared for some technical difficulties considering the state of her vehicle, the torn off hind wheel that came flying past her face still came as a surprise.

Suddenly lacking the rear portion, the Lawmaster crashed on its side, luckily not trapping the Judge underneath its broken form. From a lightning-fast assessment Anderson knew that she had about hundred meters time to somehow break the momentum that would hurl her against the torn truck with the velocity of more than hundred kilometers per hour.

Without a second thought she used every available resource to her in an attempt to increase the friction between her and the road. She decelerated rapidly, but still not fast enough to make the impact with the underside of the car hauler anything close to gentle. During the training at the academy she did participate in training for air deployment and was therefore familiar with the parachute landing fall, which could be applied in her situation, if one interchanged the gravitational pull with her momentum and the ground with the truck.

With her chin tucked in and elbows held close to the body Anderson let the balls of her feet take the worst of the impact, sharp piercing pain jolting up her right ankle. Her momentum worked against the gravity and hurled her upper body upwards against the steel underside of the truck into an almost standing position, before it lost the battle against the natural force and Anderson fell back to the ground, the wind hopelessly knocked out of her and her head reeling. She remained laying, tasting the acidic rain mix with blood in her mouth, trying to convince her intestinal tract that the best course of action was not to crawl up the oesophagus and spill onto the asphalt. The world spun around a fixed point that seemed just outside of her field of vision and blotches of rusty brown and grey slowly swam before her eyes.

Through the blood rushing in her ears she heard the squealing of tires and brakes, followed by the low purring of an engine, but she couldn't bring herself to act. She didn't react to the car door slamming and the semi-loud conversation between the people approaching her either. Only when she heard the sharp and clear sound of shotgun cocking did her body finally decide to move out.

The sudden change of position from stationary, presumed dead, to leaping in the air caught her attackers off-guard, allowing her to make a first move. With her world still wildly spinning she lunged at the dark shape closest to her, hoping that it was an actual attacker and not just a shadow. She was in luck and actually managed to tackle the person, using the momentum to roll on the ground, so that the other person ended up atop of her. In the next second two shotgun blasts sounded and her meat-shield spasmed a few times before going limp.

She pushed the lifeless body off of her and somersaulted backwards. Of forward, as it turned out when she landed straight at the feet of a burly man with a shotgun pointed at her face. Another was standing few steps away a serrated blade in his hands and an Uzi slung around his shoulders and at least one more was waiting in the SUV. A heavy boot pressed to Anderson's chest pinned her to the ground like an insect waiting to be squashed.

A familiar sound, which at first Anderson attributed to thunder pierced the rainy night. It took her a moment to realize why it was familiar. Help was here. She lashed out with her mind to see who has come to her aid.

-The fuck are YOU doing here?!- was her almost immediate reaction.

With sudden burst of energy coursing through her veins she struggled under the foot. The gunman responded with shifting his weight to draw the breath out of the Judge for the third time in fifteen minutes and a feral self-assured sneer.

He didn't get a chance to say the clichéd -Any last words, bitch?- that formed in his mind, before his face exploded in a fountain of brain, blood and teeth. The headless body stood upright for a moment before toppling backwards, splashing into the rainwater. The other man suffered similar fate when another shot passed through his throat. The SUV made a haphazard attempt to escape but within ten seconds turned into a speeding ball of flame.

Anderson jumped to her feet, for now ignoring both the dizziness and the pain that jolted through her. A confusing mess of emotions brewed inside her, though she decided to refer to it as fury, because that was the least confusing and unsettling one, as she stomped over to a now stationary Lawmaster and mostly the tall figure seated on it.

"The FUCK are YOU doing HERE?!" she yelled and even though her voice came out a little hoarse and shaky, she managed to convey enough of her anger and frustration.

None of which seemed to have any effect on the other person. "Really Anderson, this is the reaction you're going with?" Dredd asked, a tiny hint of amusement in his voice.

Which only aggravated Anderson further. "Of course, you reckless suicidal cunt! Did you forget, you were eviscerated today?! TODAY! You almost died, actually, I'm pretty sure there was a point where you did! Why the flying fuck are you here?!" she hissed out the last sentence, shaking with anger and something else, that she herself would falsely classify as shock if she was forced to.

"You needed help." he answered with a noncommittal shrug, as if that was reason enough.

"Yes, but..." she opened her mouth to object and then yell at him some more, but stopped when she realized that those three words somehow took the wind out of her sails. For one, it was the truth, and then, there was enough emphasis on the you to make the mess inside Anderson even harder to make sense of. Exhaling deeply, she opened her mouth again to at least thank him, but found herself unable to do that either.

Dredd didn't address her silence, instead contacted the central and in few clear concrete words described the situation. As he counted his requests, Anderson leaned against his bike and removed her helmet, letting the cold rain fall on her skin, focusing on assessing the extent of the damage done to her. The final result was surprisingly a rather positive one, at least as far as her usual damage report went.

Her reeling head and dancing world immediately got better as she gained a fixed point to lean against, showing that this didn't rank anywhere near the top fifty concussions she sustained in her service. Sharp pain pulsated in her right ankle, but it was not broken, merely twisted, with the slight possibility of torn ligament. The rest of her was the usual kind of beat up and shot, nothing that she would consider out of the ordinary.

Now finished with his talk with the control, Dredd cleared his throat to catch her attention. "The cleaning crew's dispatched, no need to stay here. I'll get you to a hospital."

She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I don't think so. I mean, you go ahead and get your ass to hospital where it belongs. I'm going to catch a cab, go home and take a nap, and I'll be just fine." she told him with a set jaw, inanvertently shifting into a combat position.

She expected him to simply make her go, not that it would be hard, even with a recent wound in his abdomen he would probably still be able to overpower her, mostly because she wouldn't fight back. But he didn't, instead he stepped off his bike and closer to her, cupping her chin in his palm and tilting her head upwards. Her breath hitched in her throat and pain flared up in her chest, something she attributed to the recent injuries sustained, but both turned out to be unwarranted as Dread simply performed a simple eye tracking test, before moving onto superficially palpating her thorax and abdomen, occasionally asking if it hurt. It did, but definitely not in the internal injury kind of way.

He pulled back and nodded. "Fine, get on." he said curtly and mounted his bike.

With an frown she placed a hand on her hip. "Uh... No. Your ass, hospital, now, shoo. I can get home just fine." she objected, intending to argue further if he refused, but when she looked at his stoic, unrelenting jaw, she realized it was about as futile as trying to take down a tank with Victorian poetry. Defeated, she threw her hands in the air with a huff. "Or whatever, you know where I live." she shrugged and equipped her helmet before jumping onto the back of his bike.

Holding onto Dredd was somewhat awkward, though not entirely unpleasant and Anderson found herself relaxing little by little against his back, letting her head rest between his shoulder blades. She let out a deep breath and closed her eyes, her fingers carefully dancing over the spot where he was wounded. -I'm so glad you're alive.- she thought into the ether, loud enough for him to hear.

With her eyes closed, she lost herself in the roaring of thunder and the steady rhythm od Dredd's hearth and was only roused when the Lawmaster eventually came to a halt. She opened her eyes and blinked a few times to clear her vision. It took her a few moment to notice, mostly because the architecture of the City was for the most part highly repetitive, but then she saw that the building they were standing in front of wasn't her Block. But it wasn't completely unfamiliar either and after a second more to think, she realized it was Dredd's.

She dismounted, her damaged ankle protesting against the exercise and cleared her throat. "So, thanks, now if you could navigate me to the nearest bus stop. I think something goes to the forty-six from here."

There was no doubt he rolled his eyes. "Anderson, there's a maniac set on killing you in and you still might be bleeding internally. You're staying." he said and offered her a hand.

"Good point." she laughed and limped beside him to his apartment.

He let her wait in the living room for a moment and when he returned, he handed her a towel and some spare clothes, consisting of a short-sleeved shirt and sweatpants. "You already know it here, make yourself comfortable." he said before disappearing into his room again.

With a small nod she navigated straight to the bathroom, drying her damp hair. With a stream of curses she peeled herself out of her uniform, almost crying when she was trying to get her twisted ankle out of the boot, which grew twice as thick and painfully violet. Sighing, she got into the tub and let the warm water soak the pain away, or at least make it less prevalent. Afterwards she raided Dredd's medical cabinet and patched up the few gunshot wounds and cuts that she sustained, before getting dressed and grabbing a bandage roll and an anti-swelling balm.

With her body finally aching less, she limped slowly to the dimly-lit living room, her bare feet patting softly on the chilly floor. Dredd was sitting on the couch, the sports channel providing background noise. With a small smile on her lips Anderson plopped beside him, folding herself into a position mindful of all her aches, her hurt leg extended. She opened the balm, a clear minty aroma rising into the air and dipped her fingers into the pliant substance. The balm was cold and soothing as she rubbed it into the skin over her wounded ankle, the pain subsiding as the local anesthetic began to work and she let out a pleased sigh.

She cleared her throat to catch the attention of the man next to her, though that was hardly necessary. "I don't think I've thanked you for that action back there, so here I go. You shouldn't have, you're a moron with a death wish and thanks, I'm really glad you were there." she said with a small lopsided smile.

He rubbed his left arm, just above the place where the cannula was injected. "I'm alive because of you. It was the least I could do." he said neutrally.

She ran a hand through her hair. "That was nothing." she shook her head in dismissal. "But speaking of, are you really all right? I mean, it was a lot of damage and for you to go from the hospital in the same day... Don't you dare get yourself killed because of me." she finished with a shrug.

Now it was Dredd's turn to shake his head. "I'm fine." he said, his features becoming a touch softer.

"Okay, then." she nodded reluctantly and shifted to get into a more comfortable position. Her eyes drifted towards the TV. "So, what are we watching?" she asked, wanting thee conversation, even if banal, to continue.

He shrugged. "Some kind of re-run, haven't seen it."

"Want to bet?" she asked with a mischievous smirk.

"For?"

"The usual."

Dredd leaned against the back of the couch and folded his hands behind his head. "Can't really win there, so..." he shrugged.

She nodded, having to agree with his point. "Okay, something else then. Suggestions?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. Having him suggest something was probably the safer option, because what she had in mind would probably not be exactly well-received.

He thought for a moment. "Paperwork." he said at last.

With furrowed brow she tilted her head in confusion. "Uh... explain."

He shrugged and elaborated. "When this case is over, someone will have to summarize."

She mulled over the sentence, but a wide smirk appeared on her face as she understood. The possibility of saving hours upon hours of research, categorization and the actual writing was enticing to say the least. "We have deal." she flashed her teeth in an excited grin. "Black or stripes?"

"Pick one."

With the prospect of actually winning something meaningful, the game became much more interesting. Anderson gleefully cheered at every successful point, or something like that, that her team scored and equally ferociously fumed and cursed at the screen when something bad happened, although she was pretty sure half of the time she was yelling at the wrong guy, for the wrong reason, and maybe even on the wrong side.

"Oh, get off of him, you inbred, undereducated, steroid-fed moron!" she exclaimed, as one of Dredd's players completely ignored the incoming ball in favor of jumping on one of his opponents and attempting to bash his face in. "Did you see that?!" she turned to Dredd with an exasperated expression, only to find him already looking at her.

One of the corners of his mouth was lifted into a small warm smile, so very unfamiliar that Anderson wondered whether Dredd himself knew that it was there. A wave of heat coursed through her body and settled on her face. Biting her lip, Anderson pulled all her limbs closely to her body, trying to pretend that the person that was yelling at the TV thirty seconds prior was someone entirely different. "I'm making a fool out of myself, aren't I?" she asked running a hand through her hair in embarrassment.

Dredd flashed his teeth in a fleeting grin. "Not at all."

She responded with a muffled growl and made a mental note to keep calm and in control for the rest of the night. Five minutes later the note was forgotten and she was back to her animated, cursing self. Eventually, the win of her team was announced and she let out a victorious yay, turning to her partner with the very clear intention of rubbing her victory in his face. "Ha! I hope enjoy paperwork, because you're going to drown in it." she grinned, bouncing in excitement, not noticing that in the process she inched a touch closer to him.

She didn't get to continue her taunting, because Dredd suddenly grasped her by the collar of her shirt and pulled her closer, their mouths crashing together. It was quick and powerful, like a lightning strike and left behind an atmosphere charged with feral joy and desire.

Dredd jerked back, visibly taken aback by his own action. "Cass..." he started, his eyes darting to her lips for a spilt second and Anderson knew that if she let him, he would say something sane and cruel, something her own logical reasoning couldn't but agree with. She didn't want to hear it, in fact she didn't need to, the rational part of her has already voiced its objections.

She was perfectly aware of the fact the best course of action would be to follow reason, step back, keep her distance and hope that once the case was over, whatever it was that got stirred up between them would subside and eventually go away. Every other scenario was just insane and inherently self-destructive. She knew that, but in a sudden flash of clarity, she realized that she didn't care in the slightest.

Her lips snuffed out the rest of his sentence in a desperate attempt to stop the influx of rational thinking.

Then he cupped her cheek in his palm, his fingertips getting lost in her hair and his lips moved against hers with ferocity and abandon that mirrored her own. The breath hitched in her throat as she felt him take the reins and a rebellious spark inside her ignited a wildfire. As he wrapped his other arm around her midriff and pulled her closer, his weight tipping her backwards, she playfully bit his lower lip and pushed back.

He let her win the little fight for dominance, leaning against the back of the couch, ending up in a half-seated, half-laying position. With his right hand he reached for the back of her neck and deepened kiss, then tilted her head back, his mouth assaulting her exposed throat, his other hand tracing the curvature of her back and hips.

She uttered a small whimpering sound and felt his lips on her neck pull into a wolfish grin, his teeth tugging at the tender skin above her jugular. His hands slipped under the hem of her shirt, the touch of his fingers burning marks into her bare skin and almost reflexively her body rolled against him. She mirrored his action and ran her fingers down his chest and abdomen, fascinated by the way his muscles tensed and relaxed against her touch.

With a wry smile tugging at her lips Anderson straddled her superior officer, wrapping her legs around his hips, her smile turning wicked as she heard him grind his teeth. She let her hair fall in front of her eyes, her lips pulling into a shameless smirk as he uttered a deep strangled growl from the back of his throat and dug his fingers into the soft flesh of her hips.

Unhinged and unbridled, her thoughts and emotions were flowing into the air around them, terrifying in sheer power and intensity. Her mind latched onto his, bringing down the walls encompassing his mind millimeter by millimeter, leaving him unguarded, his wants and needs intermingling with her own. They washed across her skin like a lightning storm and reverberated in her mind, her entire being resonating to their frequency.

Outside the storm raged on, magnificent and unstoppable, yet completely overshadowed by a much smaller one in the end.

Behold the power of my canon-bending! Cry and despair as I ignore well-established character traits!

Seriously though, I hope you liked this and if you did, or even if you didn't, please leave a comment ^^